


A Long Way Home - Alternative Ending

by ceywoozle



Series: A Long Way Home [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Trigger warning for suicide, a long way home, alternative ending, mary is crazy, mary is evil, non-canon compliant mary, this won't make a lick of sense if you haven't read the original story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-09-30
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:53:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 23,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1994046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternative ending to A Long Way Home. If you haven't read the original story this won't make sense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god. I said I would do it, didn't I? You didn't believe me, did you? DID YOU!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!
> 
> Oh god. Okay. I'm not crazy, I swear.
> 
> So, this is—as the title suggests—the long-threatened alternative ending to A Long Way Home. As everyone who read the original story knows, I hate parentlock. Like, a lot. So this is my non-parentlock ending, and it also ties up some of the loose ends and blatant hints I left scattered around the original story before chickening out and posting Chapter 44 instead. I don't know that anyone particularly cares, or will actually read this. It's okay! I know most people were happy with where I left it. It's all good! I'm doing this almost entirely for my own gratification because, like I might have mentioned, I HATE PARENTLOCK WITH MY WHOLE SOUL AND BEING.
> 
> Ahem.
> 
> So anyway, this is meant to pick up from the end of Chapter 43, after Sherlock's confrontation in the hospital with Mary. It's not a terribly polished piece (but good lord which of my pieces are) because, as I said, this is more for my own gratification. However, it is here. It is alive. This is my personal canon ending for this story. That is all. Yay.

John is released two days later, the pain still there, the world still a little bit fuzzy. Sherlock is beside him the whole time, holding his hand as a nurse wheels him out, depositing them both at the front entrance where a taxi waits.

Sherlock carries the last of their belongings in a plastic bag, most of it having already gravitated back to 221B through Lestrade's efforts. He is fully dressed in his narrow black suit, his hair washed and carefully fluffed. John is wearing a pair of his own sleep pants, a loose tshirt, warm socks, a pair of slippers. Around his shoulders, completely incongruous against his ensemble, his deeply bruised eyes, his too-long hair disarranged in soft spikes, is Sherlock's heavy Belstaff draped like a blanket.

It is a journey, wracked with false starts and unexpected pitfalls, but finally John is transferred into the back seat of the taxi, panting and pale, his face set in a tense mask. The nurse takes the wheelchair away and Sherlock slides in after John.

The ride to Baker Street is both too short and too long. When they arrive, the resignation is already clear on John's face, but he says nothing, lets himself be helped out and Sherlock has to admonish him several times to _just relax, I won't hurt you._ But it's an instinctive reaction, this tightening up, the body's protection of a weakness, and in the end Sherlock has to step back, watching with a carefully neutral face as John levers himself upright, allowing only an arm under his own for support.

Mrs Hudson is at the door and Lestrade is with her. He precedes them, walking backwards with his arms out but untouching and John scowls at him the whole way. Sherlock is behind, ready. Mrs Hudson flutters around in the hall, talking about tea and the time her ex-husband had been shot. Nobody is listening, but nobody tells her to shut up either, which is a progress of sorts.

They make it upstairs without John falling over or passing out, a decided win. But he's pale and shaking, and finally,  _finally,_ he lets Sherlock slip a careful arm around his waist and let himself be walked with careful steps to Sherlock's bedroom in the back. He offers Lestrade a smile, tight but genuine, and the DI returns it with a look of understanding sympathy. Sherlock offers nothing at all, but Lestrade doesn't expect it. He leaves them without a word, taking Mrs Hudson's offer of tea before he goes home.

In the bedroom, Sherlock helps John first to sit, and then lie back on the bed. He is breathing hard, his entire body quivering and the pain is immense as his body, exhausted, irritates its own wounds by this constant tension and correction of shaking muscles. Sherlock slides the slippers off John's feet but leaves the coat where it is. He finds the prescription bottle in his pocket and he shakes out two pills, helping John to swallow them before putting a pillow under his head, putting a blanket around him and then, when the shivering doesn't stop, a second blanket before climbing in beside him. John cries out when Sherlock tries to touch him, his whole body jumping away in a flinch and in the end Sherlock just lays there, wishing he could do something, wishing he could change this, change anything, change everything.

But he can't, so he lays there as John hums furiously to himself in an effort to control the pain until the drugs take effect, until eventually, after days, after weeks, he quiets and stills and slips heavily into sleep.

 


	2. Wonder

It is dark when John finally wakes, his head stuffed with cotton, his mouth sticky and tasting like a hospital.

He has no idea where he is for a moment, staring around at this unfamiliar place, this strange ceiling, until he realises, suddenly and with a breath-stealing intensity, where he is. For a full minute, he lays convinced that he has woken up to a reality in which Sherlock's blood is still a stain on a grey and unforgiving pavement, the words  _Goodbye, John,_ still echoing with fresh fervency in his head. Misery descends, a familiar choking grief, something solid and fatal lodged in his chest.

But there is a noise, the sound of a step, and a pale face with wide blue eyes peer around the door frame and John remembers. Mary. Moran. The warehouse. Mary. The hospital.

“Sherlock.”

His voice croaks, barely audible, but that name is a blessing in his own voice, real and utterly indisputable, and in the doorway Sherlock smiles, a relieved and wondering thing and he comes into the room.

There is a glass of water in his hand and John doesn't know which one of them he's more relieved to see.

He lets Sherlock help him rise, a careful manoeuvring of hands and the careful pressure of limbs. He drinks on his own, raising the glass in a perfectly capable hand, though Sherlock watches him anxiously the whole time, ready to intervene though John has no idea between what.

He doesn't stop till the glass is empty and he already feels better. The pain is down to a dull ache that only sharpens when he moves too quickly or too far, so he lets Sherlock take the glass away and he grins at those eyes, snapping back to him, those hands hovering in nervous anticipation.

“Sherlock, I'm fine.”

Sherlock frowns. “No you're not.”

“Yes, but.  Better. And I will be fine.”

Sherlock says nothing, searches his face, the set of his shoulders, the clench of his hands before finally, satisfied, he nods.

“Do you want to get up?” he asks.

Regardless, he needs to. John gives a nod, his eyes flickering to the bathroom door and Sherlock understands immediately. There's no awkwardness left in this, not after a week at the hospital, Sherlock doing everything without question, without complaint. He helps John to rise, a slow, gradual process, one careful step at a time, and when he's on his feet Sherlock follows him in, despite John's protests. 

John will have to put a stop to this. He knows he will have Sherlock following him to the loo for the next month if he doesn't say something, but the concern on Sherlock's face is real and sharp, just a little too close to fear, so John says nothing, lets him stand there while he does what he needs to, and when he's done, shuffling towards the tub, every intention of taking a shower, Sherlock is there before him, twisting the taps open, letting the water warm before turning on the shower and letting it run. Together they strip John of all his clothes, each piece falling slowly away to fall gracelessly on the bathroom floor.

When John is undressed, Sherlock strips himself, tearing carelessly at silk and cotton. A button pings off in his haste and Sherlock ignores it, ignores John's sigh of protest, who knows who it is who will be sewing it back on again. It takes less than fifteen seconds and he is at John's elbow again, his arm around his waist as John climbs over the edge of the tub. It is utterly unnecessary. The wound is in his shoulder, not his abdomen where making such motions might be difficult, and the morphine he had taken earlier is still going strong. But he lets it happen regardless because the intensity of the need on Sherlock's face is heartbreaking and besides, there is a lot to be said for the feel of warm, bare skin pressed against his own.

So tonight, John decides. Till they both get used to being here again. Together. For the first time, with nothing between them. Tonight. Tomorrow will be time enough for life to go on.

Sherlock washes him, standing John in the spray where it won't wash over his face and make him splutter, lathering the soap up between two white hands. He starts at John's feet, lifting one and then the other. John puts his hands on Sherlock's shoulders to steady himself, feeling the flex of muscle beneath water-warmed flesh.

He moves upwards, over John's ankles, past his calves, paying careful attention to the backs of his knees, then sliding upwards over thighs. He laves the crease where thigh meets torso, then around to his buttocks where he is thorough and gentle and there is nothing sexual about it. Soapy fingers slide around to the front where penis and testicles are cleaned with equal thoroughness, but this time John can't help the betraying twitch of his own body, and Sherlock, kneeling at a perfect level, doesn't miss it. Blue eyes slide upwards as he leans forward and with slow deliberation takes John, still soft, into his mouth.

It is a slow and sensuous caress, almost overwhelming in its intensity, John's skin almost too sensitive, his mind still slightly divorced. But Sherlock doesn't linger long. Gives three more loving strokes with a tongue, hot and wet, before pulling off and placing a careful kiss on John's thigh, and without a spoken word between them he starts washing him again.

He doesn't pause again until he reaches John's right shoulder, the wound not yet healed, the edges of skin still unknit. The staples are still there. They'll come out in a week. But for now their presence only serves to make it more grotesque, more obvious, as if the scarlet alarm of broken skin wasn't quite enough.

Sherlock stands there, staring at it, hands frozen on either side of this hole, this clear evidence of mortality in a body he doesn't want to live without, until John starts to twitch, feeling self-conscious by this stare that has nothing of the familiar clinical detachment in it.

“They said it might never heal properly,” he says, and he knows this isn't helpful but he can't stop himself from talking. It's a litany that is going through his own mind, never stopping. He thinks of his left shoulder, already glitchy, and realises that he might finally have outlived his own usefulness.

Sherlock is still silent, still staring, and John, unable to look, concentrates his gaze on this scant inches between them.

“What will you do?” he says, and his voice doesn't shake at all.

Sherlock's glance flicks upwards, taking in that downturned face and John can feel its scrutiny without even seeing it.

“What will I do about what?” Sherlock asks and John can hear the uncertainty in that tone,  _oh so careful._

John looks up, forces a smirk. “You're liable to get killed now without me.”

The silence is deep and echoing.

“Without you,” Sherlock repeats, his voice dead.

“Well, not much bloody use to you now, am I?” And he hates the way the bitterness worries through. His eyes fall away again, unable to maintain the wide-eyed stare across from him, but he still hears the sharp inhalation, almost angry.

“Stop being more of an idiot than you can help,” Sherlock bites off, his voice low and snarling and John, staring at the inches between them, watches as the gap between them starts to widen.

He feels a heartbeat of panic, frustration at himself, unjust exasperation at Sherlock. He reaches out with his left hand, grabbing that vanishing wrist.

“No,” he says urgently, still unable to look up, but Sherlock stops, doesn't fight him as he pauses and waits. “No. Don't. Sorry. I'm sorry. It'll heal. Right? I mean, yeah. Of course. Sorry.”

The tension slowly dissipates, muscle and tendon, rigid with anger, slowly soften and melt between John's fingers. He feels the moment Sherlock gives in, the moment he turns back, steps close again, and then there is a hand on his face and he closes his eyes rather than look at him, until soft lips find his own and Sherlock kisses him.

It is gentle and utterly disarming and in spite of himself, in spite of the terror still settled at the pit of his stomach, John can feel the doubts wash off of him, swirling around his feet and sliding away. Whatever happens, he knows, this is it. This is everything. There isn't anything else that comes after this man, and when Sherlock pulls back, John opens his eyes and makes himself look at that face. Beautiful. Familiar. Miraculous. His.

“You are not your bloody shoulder, John Watson,” Sherlock says. “And you will continue to keep me from getting myself killed till—” he hesitates, frowns. “Well. Till you don't.”

John can't help it. He splutters a laugh, his head falling into the shoulder in front of him. “Forever, then,” he says. “Got it.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” Sherlock says and John feels long fingers sliding along his scalp. “No one lives forever.”

“You'd bloody well better.”

The fingers tighten, an almost convulsive grip before Sherlock lets go, steps away. “Let me finish,” he says.

He washes the rest of John carefully. His shoulder, his other shoulder, where the scar is white and smooth, its uses long since negotiated. Soapy fingers strip the hospital from his arms, and careful fingers, gentle and precise, rub circles over his jaws, his cheeks, under blue, tired eyes. His hair comes last, firm hands lathering in shampoo and then rinsing it away with wide, broad strokes.

When John is clean, Sherlock does himself, scrubbing roughly at skin, thorough but hasty. He is done in a fraction of the time and he only moves John out of the heat of the spray at the very end, when he has to rinse himself, and he does that with swift efficient strokes. Then shutting off the water, he guides John from the tub.

He towels him off with the same care he used to wash him, patting carefully at the staples in his shoulder, and when he is dry, throws his own dry towel around his shoulders and hustles him into the bedroom where he wraps John in his own dressing gown. It is far too large but John says nothing, inhaling the vaguely chemical smell that underlies the faint scent of sandalwood.

Sherlock's own dressing is completed with careless haste, the old grey tshirt thrown on inside out, the sleep trousers hanging off of one hip. He leads John through the kitchen and into the sitting room where he places him like something precious and breakable on the sofa.

“Sherlock—” John says, slightly exasperated. But the humour is coming through and he doesn't know if he wants to cry or laugh anymore.

“Hungry?” Sherlock interrupts.

John blinks. “Yeah, I suppose.”

“Excellent,” he says, even as the door rings and he disappears only to return several minutes later with a paper bag.

“What—?”

“Angelo. I said it was a special occasion.”

He doesn't wait for John to respond, depositing the bag on the coffee table before striding into the kitchen and coming back out with two forks.

“Plates?” John asks, already knowing the answer.

Sherlock just blinks at him as if he's gone slightly mad and throws himself onto the sofa beside John who has already starting rummaging in the various containers and bags.

“Want to watch something?” John asks, wondering how far he can push this, not quite daring to meet Sherlock's eye, afraid he'll burst out laughing if he does.

The rustled of paper and squeak of polystyrene stops and John can feel the look that is levelled at him.

“What would you like to watch?” Sherlock asks, his voice deliberately neutral and John can tell how hard he's trying, so he keeps his own voice level when he answers.

“Oh— _Lord of the Rings?_ ”

There's a pause. “Like dancing?”

“Uh. No. It's a film. Or three films. See, there's a wizard and these Hobbits—”

“My God, John. Couldn't you find any more Jerry Bond to rot your brain on?  _Wizards?_ And what sort of habit does he have that could possibly make this remotely worthwhile?”

He is scowling fiercely into the lasagne and John can't help it. He laughs, a graceless snort that cuts Sherlock off and makes him turn to stare.

“What's so funny?” he demands suspiciously and John can only shake his head, reaching for the hand at his side, grinning as he presses a clumsy kiss to its wrist.

“Nothing, Sherlock,” he says, grateful, relieved, utterly lost. “Nothing.”

 


	3. Silence

Two and a half months pass. Ten weeks in which the edges of more than one wound begins to come together.

Sherlock starts looking for cases again, just small ones that let John tag along without straining the muscles that are still finding their way back to normal. He starts getting lost in day long experiments again, using up all the milk, leaves body parts on the worktop. He sulks when he doesn't get his way, yells when John is being unreasonable. It feels familiar. It feels...domestic. The only difference is that John has other ways to pull him out of his sulks and strops now, ways that leave Sherlock smiling and sated and ready to start something new.

John grows stronger. He adheres rigorously to the physio schedule and exercises laid out for him. He heals more slowly than he used to, but he heals, every week a little stronger, able to push himself a little further. He might not ever get his full motion back, his shoulder might always ache, a sullen reminder in London's inclement climate, but he doesn't stop trying, refuses to let it stop him, and every day gets him closer to being allowed back on cases, back to running through alleyways and jumping over rooftops.

Oddly, however, he misses the cases less than he thought he would. He still enjoys the small ones, where Sherlock's genius shines in a onslaught of impossible deductions, but he finds that life-threatening chases down dark alleys no longer appeal as much as they once did. He feels vaguely guilty about this, especially when he notices that Sherlock is quietly turning away the more exciting cases. He mentions it once, trying to tread lightly, knowing that this is an area that could have them both shuttering up in a argument that could easily carry on for a week if he's not careful. But Sherlock only looks at him, expression slightly surprised as he gives an eloquent shrug.

“My experiment is coming to a crucial stage,” he says, though John knows he has nothing on except his current project, tracing the rate of decomposition in the human liver when treated with a variety of chemicals. But he doesn't say anything, only nods in agreement and goes back to his paper, aware of a vague feeling of relief.

For all this, however, there is a weight in the air of Baker Street, a presence that John is finding it hard to shake. It isn't Mary, though Sherlock is careful to avoid mention of that particular name. But John begins to notice other silences, too, the ones that appear after Sherlock's been on his laptop and John will pick it up to find a browser page open to allergen free mattresses for baby cots, or medical research papers on the feeding of infants on breast milk versus formula.

John doesn't mention it. Doesn't want to talk about. Doesn't want to think about it, either. He can still hear Mycroft in his head, when Sherlock is busy, when the flat is silent, right before he falls asleep: _What do you know about Mary's relationship with David Cardigan?_

It doesn't matter.  _It doesn't matter._ Except that, not so deep down, he knows that it does. This thing growing, the reminder of everything he's ever regretted, the memory of all the things he's done wrong, in this tiny thing still unformed, growing inside a woman he had never actually known at all.

He resents it, entirely, and he hates himself for it. He will love it when he sees it. Babies are like that, aren't they? You're supposed to adore them on sight. He's heard that before, he's sure of it. And he wants to love it. He wants to love it  _so badly_ that it is a constant gnawing at the back of his mind, this worry that he won't live up to the standard of  _decent human being, normal parent._ Because he is a parent. He is. He is a parent, and he is ashamed of himself and his secret wish that this child, this living emblem of all of his pain, might never be born at all.

 

* * * * *

 

It is March when the phone call comes, a grey, windy day, cold and wet and clammy. John doesn't even look up from the book he is reading, not even when Sherlock gives a snort and a huff and accepts the call with an eye roll that could have dislodged the moon's gravitational flux.

“What?” Sherlock says into the phone, and then the sound of a voice, tinny and far away on the other end of the line.

It is the silence that follows this that finally has John looking up, his eyes turning quizzically from the medical journal in his lap to see the sudden tightening in Sherlock's expression, the strain in his suddenly dark eyes.

“Sherlock?”

There is a heartbeat of silence, then without a word Sherlock rises to his feet and takes a step forward, closing the distance that stands between them. He holds out the mobile and, with a perplexed glance, John takes it.

“Hello?”

_“Hello, John.”_

“Mycroft?”

_“Someone wants to see you.”_

He can feel the dread rising in him before he even asks. He doesn't want to hear this, doesn't want to know. He has a sudden urge to throw the phone against the wall, stomp on it and crack it, watch it dissolve into its component parts beneath the heel of his foot.

He doesn't do that, of course. He's aware of Sherlock at his shoulder, a radiating presence, crackling with sudden unspent energy on what had, until moments ago, been a quiet day filled with silent contentment. 

“Who?” he demands, because he has to.

_“You_ can  _say no.”_

“Mycroft.”

A sigh, exaggerated and familiar.  _“Mary Morstan.”_

 


	4. Mary

Bronzefield Prison is an oddly contradictory building, heavy but bright, everything weighed down by volume and intent, with windows that seem incongruously large, paint startlingly light.

The guard in front of them doesn't talk at all. She is stiff-backed and intimidating, carrying an air of confidence and authority that is related to but separate from the kind that John remembers from the army, like a different room in the same house.

John is aware of Sherlock, a presence dark and steady at his side. They are shoulder to shoulder and John wants to reach over and take his hand but Sherlock's are tucked protectively in his pockets, his eyes sharp and darting as he takes in every detail, every minor shadow and nuance, from the cages over the fluorescent lights to the mesh over the bullet proof glass.

John wishes he were elsewhere. Anywhere else. He doesn't want to do this. He doesn't want to see her. He doesn't even know if he wants this baby. He wants to stop, to turn around, to grab Sherlock and hold him in his arms and tell him that this is it, this is all he needs, he doesn't need anything else, anyone else, and he doesn't _want_ it. It has been perfect. _This_ has been _perfect._

He almost does. He almost stops, spins, runs away. He remembers Mycroft's words: _You don't have to see her, John. Just say no._ And he should have. Jesus, he should have. He wonders if it's too late to ask about a paternity test. He wonders if it's too late to have Mycroft look into David. He is beginning to panic because whatever Sherlock says, John knows this will change things. This will change _everything,_ and he's had this for far too short a time to want this changed now. He's been happy for far too short a time to want this reminder in his life again, this presence that will grow up and leave him questioning, every single day, if that's David's chin, if those are Mary's eyes.

And he falters. Actually intends to stop, to turn around, to grab Sherlock and leave. Except that even as he does the guard comes to a halt, turns to a door on her left, swipes a card and presses her thumb to a reader. It flashes green and the door clicks open. She pushes through and suddenly it's too late. It's too late. Sherlock goes through and John, left in the hallway alone, knows that this is his fault, too.

It's not a private room but they're the only ones there. A long low wall passes through the centre. From four feet off the ground to the ceiling there stretches a clear glass window. It is scuffed and scratched in places, but no crack or chips appear in its marked surface. In the centre of the room, almost directly across from the doorway and on the other side of the glass, sits Mary.

She is wearing a boiler suit, bright yellow and unfortunate green, and he can see the swell of her belly where it's distended against the loose material. He knows she's close. A matter of days, not weeks anymore. She looks tired and pale and her expression is utterly flat and John stares at her from the doorway, aware of the heat of Sherlock at his shoulder, the guard standing to the side of the door. There are two more guards standing on the other side of the glass in front of the doorway that exits from that side of the room, but apart from that they are alone. John wishes he weren't here. That he had never agreed to this. That for once he had listened to Mycroft and denied it.

But he hadn't. So he stands in here instead, staring at the thick pane of glass that divides him from the mother of a child—his child?—and wishes fervently that he wasn't such a fucking idiot. Sherlock is right: he is stupid. Sherlock is always fucking right.

“John?”

Sherlock. He is leaning down, his voice close to John's ear and John doesn't know if it's just the effect of this place but there is nothing comforting about it. He shivers at the thin thread of breath that blows cold along his neck. He thinks of only hours before, lying in bed with Sherlock hot inside of him and he wonders what happened between then and now. What is wrong with him? Is he doing this on purpose? Sabotaging every good thing that's ever happened to him? 

Everything, everything good is always taken away. The army, his career, Sherlock, Mary. Is it him? Is it all him? Was Sherlock right, all those months ago? Standing in 221B, telling him that this was all his fault? Every time he thought he had something, thought maybe this was it, this time he would be where he belonged, where he was needed, where he could be useful, he remembers a father he never tried to help, a mother he couldn't, a sister he simply didn't. He thinks of Mary, who he can barely even stand to look at now, this child that should be his that he can hardly bare to think about. Sherlock, who he had failed and then failed again, only to finally,  _finally_ succeed...

Except now he is pushing him away, too. Shuddering at the feel of his breath against his neck. Bringing in this creature that will destroy everything that Sherlock needs in life to be happy. And what has changed since this morning? Nothing. Nothing but John himself.

“John?” He feels the hand on his shoulder and he flinches away because he can't bear to be touched right now. The guard on his left glances over, gives them a look. He feels Sherlock pull back, take a long step away.

He should apologise. Should reach back, tell him he didn't mean it. But he doesn't think he can. Mary is watching him and there is nothing in her face at all.

He feels the room seeping into him and it's cold. It's so cold. But it's good. Good. He is shivering but it's oddly cathartic. As if his very body is rejecting the superficial warmth of heaters on full blast that this place has to offer.

“Dr Watson?” the guard says. “You only have ten minutes.”

“Right,” he says. He doesn't want ten minutes. He doesn't even want ten seconds.

He steps forward and his shoes are loud against the concrete floor. Sherlock isn't behind him and he feels a guilty relief, shame.

There is a chair and a hand held receiver. Now that he is here he doesn't hesitate. Doesn't pause. He sits, picks up the hand piece. He puts it to his ear and watches the frozen instant before Mary decides to do the same and he hates her for it, this power play, this pretence at control. She has lost it all and they both know it.

He knows she will play for silence. She wants that game. Who will be the first to speak. But he's not interested in playing with her. Not interested in hearing her speak at all. He wants out. He can feel the air in this place touching him like it's a physical presence, something weighing him down and far too heavy. He can see the sullen superiority settle on her face as she leans back in her chair, expecting to wait for him to lose, but he's not interested. Not in the least.

“What do you want?” he says, flat and terse the moment the receiver is an inch from her ear and he sees the flash of discontent that settles on her features before moving away again and she looks at him and smiles, a dangerous smile, the smile she had given him when she had thought he was Sherlock and had shot a coin out of the air.

He remembers that look. Wishes he had shot her right there, unformed fetus and all. It was a collection of cells still. He could have done it.

Except that he knows he couldn't have. He can still feel his finger on the trigger, imprinted there forever, the bullet that had put her in the hospital in the first place, even as her own gun had levelled at Sherlock and taken aim. He doesn't regret it, but it makes him hate her even more, that she had made it necessary at all, and it makes him hate himself.

He thinks of all the steps along the way he should have taken, all the things he should have done differently. Not letting himself believe the lie that Sherlock had offered when he had made that jump from the roof of St Bart's all those years ago. Trusting himself, trusting Sherlock. Refusing to recognise his own apathy, the way he had latched onto this new person in his life, the only person who seemed to actually  _want_ to be near him, who actually  _wanted_ to talk about Sherlock. 

And then years, months later, seeing  _that face, those eyes_ again, unforgettable and grinning with mischief and hope. He should have left her that night. But John had been angry. John had been so angry.

But also, finding Mary, someone he had been able pretend to, someone who saw the broken pieces of what he had become and accepted that he'd never be able to be put back together again, it had been a relief, such a relief to know that she didn't expect anything from him. That somehow he had stumbled across something  _normal_ because that's all he had been able to handle. Every speck of blood had him seeing Sherlock's face behind it. Every police officer on the street a reminder of every case that just hadn't been enough. He knew, in those years, in those months, that the only thing in the world that could have fixed him was lying dead on the pavement of his imagination, warm and unbreathing for the rest of his life. 

So when that thing had walked into the restaurant—he should have known. He should have known that he hadn't stood a chance. That Mary hadn't stood a chance.

And he had. He had known. But what choice did he have when his only other option was to let himself be broken again?

Mary is staring at him now, that smile on her lips, and he wants to throttle her because he can't throttle himself.

“Say something or I'm leaving,” he says, and means it.

“It's good to see you, John,” she says, still with that smile on her face, lethal and familiar when he wishes it weren't.

He says nothing, stares at her, waits.

The smile falls away and she watches him with flat eyes, silent again.

He moves to put the phone down and he's not bluffing, he's leaving. He's going back to Sherlock, to Baker Street, the baby will come to them, and maybe in a week, maybe in a month, when Sherlock is quietly exhausted, when the cases have dried up because they just don't have the time, when that brilliant mind starts to eat itself and rot, John will pack his bags and take the baby and go. Because that's what you do when you love someone. When they are everything and you have nothing. That's what you give them. You give them what they need, even when they don't realise it themselves.

Her voice stops him, thin and tinny from the receiver in his hand.

“Stop.”

He doesn't want to. He shouldn't. But he does. And this too will be his fault.

“What do you want, Mary?”

“I wanted to see you,” she says and the flat look on her face has fallen away and he sees the desperation, the trust, the love, those things he remembers from the beginning, before he understood how deep under the skin her mask went.

He says nothing. Stares at her. He can see her flinch under his gaze.

“I love you. And you love me. Admit it. You think it was him but it was me you married. It was me, John. I did so many things for you. I _saved_ you. When he left you. I kept you alive.”

“I know.”

She smiles, satisfaction and hope. “You _owe_ me, John Watson. You owe me this.”

Does he? He doesn't know anymore where the balance lies, or what scale they're even using.

“What do you even think I can do, Mary?”

“Come back to me. John, come back to me. We belong to each other. You're _mine._ You know that. You know you belong to me. I paid for you, all those years, listening, nodding, loving. We're still married, you know. Come back to me and we'll raise our baby as it's meant to be raised.”

“Mary. You're in _prison.”_

She smiles, a soft, conspiratorial thing and he's reminded of a hundred other occasions when he saw this look, trouble and mischief and joy. He had loved it. He had loved that spark in her eye.

“There are people. If you get a message to them. We'll disappear together. Start somewhere new. No one will find us.”

“Mary—”

“No, John. You owe me this. I _saved your life._ I can take it away again, too.”

“What are you talking about?”

She smiles and this time there is nothing joyful in it. She puts a hand on her stomach, on the bulge before her, this thing inside her that very soon, too soon, will become a whole other human.

“There are things I can do,” she says simply, and she isn't smiling anymore.

He stares at her, horrified, terrified. He needs to get out. _He needs to get out._

He drops the phone, doesn't even care where it lands. He can hear her voice chasing him, the distant buzz of his name being shouted through a receiver. He ignores it, ignores everything, ignores Sherlock who is waiting for him, saying his name, asking a question.

He runs from that place, from whatever it is behind him, whatever lies ahead. He runs, thinking that maybe, maybe, if he goes fast enough, it might actually work.

 


	5. Mycroft

Sherlock is at St Bart's when he gets the text, laden with its usual mystery and drama. He stares at the screen, wondering. It's been two days since the visit to Mary. Two days in which John hasn't said more than three words at a time. Two days in which he flinches back from every touch, frowns at every word. Sherlock doesn't know what Mary said but he had seen, seen that look she gave him, the telling hand on her engorged belly.

He stares now at his phone, at the message that tells him nothing, and he wonders what sort of news this is going to be.

Not that it matters. He doesn't have a choice this time. Too much at risk. He grabs his Belstaff and slots the phone into his pocket, ignoring Molly's startled query from the other side of the lab. He strides out the door and through the hospital, ignoring the lift and leaping the steps downwards two at a time. He weaves his way through the lobby, through the ever-present crowds, and pushes his way out through the exit where, true to form, a black government car, sleek and tinted, sits waiting.

He doesn't question it, though he rolls his eyes a little, enough so any CCTV trained on him will pick it up, and goes straight for the back door. It's unlocked, of course, and he slides in without a pause, slamming the door shut behind him.

The car starts to move and Sherlock doesn't speak. Neither does the driver. They both know where they're going. Sherlock slumps in the back seat, frowning out the side window as London slips by in silence.

It's a short journey, the driver clearly familiar with the side streets and byways that avoid the wider congested roads. When they pull up in front of The Diogenes barely eight minutes have passed.

He gets out, aware of being watched, of eyes that he can't see, and when he pushes in through the door, no one stops him or questions him. He knows the way by now. This is not new to him. He follows the hall to the small door at the end, utterly unremarkable in this polished and proper place, and follows the stairs down. He'll never understand why Mycroft chooses this place of all places. Surely his activity here isn't a secret to anyone who knows to find him here. But that's just like him, he supposes. A little bit cold, a little bit dark, a great deal dramatic. When Sherlock reaches the door at the bottom of the steps he doesn't even knock.

Mycroft isn't expecting him to, of course. When Sherlock walks into his office he doesn't even glance up from the papers on his desk, frowning with a look on his face that could be described as _troubled_ if Sherlock didn't know any better.

He sits down uninvited, slouching in the leather chair placed across and off to the side from where Mycroft is seated, and Mycroft is expecting that too, doesn't even roll his eyes in exasperation at this blot on the family escutcheon, who walks in unannounced and takes his seat uninvited.

Sherlock sighs. Crosses his legs and starts kicking at the desk. His foot makes a solid  _thunk thunk thunk_ against the heavy grey steel.

Mycroft's frown deepens into disapproval and he finally looks up, as Sherlock knew he would.

“You never could sit still.”

This time Sherlock frowns, scowling heavily at him. He kicks the desk harder. Mycroft rolls his eyes.

“If I knew you were going to behave like a child...”

Sherlock glares at him but he stops swinging his foot, wanting this interview to be over. “What do you want, Mycroft?”

Mycroft doesn't say anything. Grimaces. He picks up a sheet of folded paper from the side of his desk and holds it out.

Sherlock stares at it in suspicion.

“What's this?”

Mycroft gives it a meaningful shake. Doesn't say a word.

With a huff, Sherlock takes it, unfolds it with a snap. He stares at the words, the letters, the numbers. Can feel the shudder of the world around him.

“Why are you giving this to me?” he asks.

Mycroft leans back in his chair, watches Sherlock from across the desk. “You know what that is?”

“Obviously. Paternity test. Mary's child. This is from last week. You already knew the child was David's. I ask again: why are you giving me this?”

He is staring across at Mycroft, feeling the anger start to churn inside him, more than the usual resentment that's he used to feeling with his brother. He doesn't know why this is necessary. He doesn't know why he needs to see this. Is Mycroft trying to rub it in? Trying to make this even more difficult for John? For them? Sherlock doesn't know how he feels about this child. Doesn't particularly care. All he cares is that John wants it, that John is upset, that somehow it's coming between them and he doesn't know how or why.

Mycroft is watching him carefully, his expression utterly neutral and Sherlock has learnt to distrust that face. But then again, he distrusts all of Mycroft's faces.

“We had that conversation at the hospital, of course,” Mycroft says slowly, his tone far too careful. “John seemed...determined, to say the least. But I wonder, just a bit, if perhaps he has started to regret his rash decision.”

“And naturally you know exactly how John is feeling.”

The neutral expression breaks and he sighs in heavy exasperation. “Please, Sherlock,” he scoffs. “I do have people watching, you know.”

“How wonderful for you,” Sherlock says tightly.

“That guard at Bronzefield, of course.”

“Of course,” Sherlock sneers.

“Among others.”

“And one of your spies knows John better than I do, of course.”

Mycroft shrugs. “Your Doctor Watson is surprisingly...complex. An idiot, naturally. But complex.”

“And his complexity leads you to what conclusion exactly?”

Again that blankness on Mycroft's face. His eyes flicker momentarily away. “I merely wonder if his view of this child isn't so simple after all.”

“And this piece of paper is supposed to do what, exactly?”

“Nothing. Something. I don't know. I've given up trying to predict how your doctor will react. A cause for congratulations, to be sure.”

Sherlock stares at him, hates him, resents him, wishes he could ask his advice because he too has long since given up predicting how John will react. But it's not that easy, and if Mycroft doesn't know the answer, who does?

He stands, unfolding himself abruptly from the chair. “Helpful, as always,” he says. He doesn't wait for an answer, but turns away, striding from the room and letting the door swing shut behind him. He doesn't slam it, of course. That would be childish.

It's only as he reaches the street again, the comparative brightness of the London spring making him squint, that he realises he is still holding the paper, the one that spells out with unwavering clarity just whose eyes that child will have. Sherlock doesn't know how he feels. Doesn't know how he  _should_ feel. He wants to ask John but this isn't something he can ask John about. He has no idea what this paper will do.

He thrusts it into his pocket, feeling it crumple against the seam and is aware of a savage satisfaction from this. He thrusts his other hand in his other pocket and feels his fingers clench against his phone. He pulls it out. It flashes an alert at him and he unlocks it to read the message from John:

 

_Client here. Will you be home soon?_

 

And then a second message, right after the first:

 

_Love you._

 

He's smiling before he's even aware of it. They'll be okay. Whatever this is, whatever happens, there will be them. And Sherlock doesn't care about much else.

He opens a new message, types out his reply:

 

_Ten minutes. I love you, too._

 

He hails the first taxi he sees.

 


	6. Storm

It's an easy one, nothing to it really. But it's messy, and Sherlock and John both come out of it ten hours later, panting and grinning and covered in blood that is neither theirs nor even human.

They strip in the kitchen, dragging their clothing from them and leaving it heaped on the linoleum at their feet while they slide against each other, panting into each others mouths and making an even bigger mess with fingers and tongues and straining erections.

They come within minutes of each other, staggering afterwards to the tub where they shower slowly, washing away sweat and come and filth, smiling against each others skin and touching far more than is necessary.

When they finish, drying off and sliding into worn, warm clothes, they stumble back into the kitchen where Sherlock wanders past, collapsing onto the sofa to file the case away in his Mind Palace, while John sighs at the mess they made, gathering their discarded clothes in a plastic bag for cleaning.

He is smiling as he does it, though. The first time in days he's felt light. Mary's silent threat relegated to the background, his own persistent worries of how much everything is about to change momentarily muted in the afterglow of sex and adrenaline.

It's nearly morning again, a few minutes past four. He rifles through their pockets, separating his own easily washed clothes from Sherlock's dry cleaning. Their trousers and shirts are stiff with blood, their coats even worse. He rifles through pockets, pulling out loose change, keys, several bills, crumpled paper. He sets them on the table, rolling up the last of the shirts and stuffing it in a large plastic garbage bag. He ties it off and throws it by the door, to be taken care of later, after he's slept a bit.

He turns to the worktop, intending to get a drink, when his eye catches on the paper, carelessly crumpled and brushed now with blood, the one he had pulled from Sherlock's Belstaff pocket. He sees a name. Or thinks he sees a name. He picks the single sheet up and straightens it in his hands.

He stares at it, not quite sure he believes what he's seeing.

“Sherlock.”

There is no answer.

He walks into the sitting room where Sherlock is lying, his hands steepled against his lips.

John puts a hand against Sherlock's shoulder and gives him a shake.

The blue eyes snap open, irritation plain on those features till he sees the look on John's face, the paper in his hand, and John knows the moment Sherlock understands, the second that lightning brain processes what is happening, and the worry on his face, the trepidation, tells John exactly what he doesn't want to know.

“Where did you get this.”

“John—”

_“Where did you get this, Sherlock.”_

Sherlock sits up slowly, his eyes fixed uncertainly on John, towering above him and filled with rage. John doesn't know what explanation would make this better. What he needs to hear in order to have this be okay.

“You did this,” John rasps. “You brought this. Here. Why. To prove something to me? To remind me of something? I know you don't want it, Sherlock. How could you. How could anyone. The child of the woman who nearly killed you. I know. I fucking. Know. But do you think—do you think this makes a difference? That if you push this in my face, remind me just how incredibly unnecessary I have been to everything I've ever had a part of, that I'll change my mind? That I can just let this go?”

“John, that's not—”

“I know, Sherlock. I know.  _I know._ Don't you  _dare_ think I don't understand what I'm doing.”

“I know you do. I know you understand. But listen, I—John.  _John!”_

But John's already walking away, already striding out the door, a coat thrown over his tshirt, his feet thrust sockless into shoes. He doesn't want to hear. He doesn't want to know. Because every argument, every word, is already whirling around in his own head.

 


	7. Decisions

Sherlock watches him go, watches him vanish down the block. He has opened the window and is actually leaning out, half his weight suspended over the pavement below. He is watching John stride down the block and disappear and he doesn't know what to do.

_Call him back._

No, don't be stupid, he'll ignore you.

_Follow him._

Sherlock tried that once, back in the beginning. The fight that had stemmed from it is something neither of them will ever forget.

Sherlock doesn't completely understand what just happened. John is angry, he knows that. He knew he would be, but he isn't entirely sure where that certainty had come from even, couldn't reason his way through it, merely knowing it as something that was true. But still, John's words had surprised him. Sherlock doesn't know what he's done to make John think he doesn't want this child. He does. Or rather, he wants John, and the child being part of that in no way hinders Sherlock's intentions.

He wants to explain, wishes he had been allowed to. John should have listened. He would have understood then. Would have seen how stupid this whole thing is and how it isn't Sherlock's fault that Mycroft is a bloody meddler.

His phone rings and he knows without looking who it is. He picks it up without even looking.

“This is your fault,” Sherlock says into the microphone.

There is a heartbeat of silence. “How nice to hear from you too, brother,” Mycroft drawls acidly.

“I told you. I told you what this would do.”

“You'll both regret it for the rest of your life if you take this child in.”

_“This isn't your decision to make, Mycroft.”_

“Nor is it yours.”

“Shut up.”

“Nor is it John's, really. I'm being extraordinarily kind here, Sherlock, even letting you two consider this.”

“Mary is John's wife,” he says, though he almost chokes on the word. He can almost hear Mycroft smirking on the other end. “This is his child.”

“Mary Morstan is not her legal name, as such, the marriage contracts are legally void. The child does not share blood with either John Watson or yourself. As of this moment, David Cardigan is the only rightful guardian.”

“What do we even know about the man except that he fell in love with a madwoman? Oh yes, perfect parenting material.”

There is a silence on the other end and Sherlock, swallowing down the bitterness, doesn't even need to hear the obvious retort: _Well, what about John._

He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand any of this. The baby will be accommodated. He's done research. The entire process of raising a child is incredibly technical and regimented for the first several months, after which point Sherlock assumes that the natural protective instinct of two adults over a younger member of the species should have firmly gotten hold. He knows science, John knows instinct. They will be perfect. They will be everything this child needs and more. And he thought he had made that clear. He thought he had let John know that, with all his lists left around the flat, the web pages opened to shops and research papers. He thought he had been clear that this is something he is willing to do, something he welcomes. He can't think of this other life as belonging to him, but it clearly belongs to John and John belongs to Sherlock, so it doesn't matter. There isn't even a question of what he is willing to accept. He accepts John. No, he  _needs_ John. And if John needs the baby, that is enough for Sherlock.

“Sherlock.” Mycroft's voice, quietly exasperated, endlessly patient.

“Where is he?”

A pause. “What?”

“John. Where did he go?”

“Really, Sherlock, I don't have a trace on the man.”

“Don't lie to me, Mycroft.”

A sigh, quiet and resigned. “He's safe. He won't do anything foolish, if that's what you're worried about.”

“I want to find him. I should have gone after him.”

“Let him be, Sherlock.”

“I don't want to. I can't. He needs me.”

“He needs to work through this.”

“I can help. That's what partners do, Mycroft. They help each other.”

“This isn't about you, Sherlock. Don't be so childish.”

“This is about us!”

“This is about him.”

Sherlock stops, breathing hard into the phone. He is angry and he knows what a mistake that is, letting Mycroft see. He knows Mycroft's wrong. But he's terrified at the thought that John might feel the same way. He doesn't know what he's missing, what he's forgotten to do. He needs to talk to John. He needs to make this okay.

“Mycroft—”

But Mycroft speaks, cutting him off, his voice tight and uncompromising. “I need to go,” he says. “I really am extraordinarily busy.” And just like that the line goes dead.

Sherlock stares at the phone in his hand, wondering if he imagined the underlying tension that had appeared in Mycroft's voice. He feels a sick fear start in his stomach. 

John.  _Oh God, John._

 


	8. Understanding

The concrete is jarring on the soles of his feet, the cold eating through his jacket. He's not dressed warm enough for this, but he's too mad to care, his temper keeping him flushed, the determined pace he sets enough to make him sweat after only a few minutes.

He's trying to get as far away from Baker Street as quickly as he can, from those eyes he can feel boring into him from behind. His own words are echoing in his mind, his own accusations flung groundless into the air to lodge in the heart of the man who had done so much for him for so long.

He doesn't know why he had said it. He's not even angry at Sherlock. This has Mycroft written all over it, but it doesn't make him less angry. He needs the anger. It's keeping him sane right now. It's keeping him from jumping off a bridge and into the Thames. It's keeping him from tearing his own hair out. He's not an idiot. He knows what all those wordless hints left around the flat mean, all the advertisements for cots and the parenting book he found under the papers on the dining table last week when he'd been cleaning up. He knows that Sherlock is trying, far harder than he is, and the worst of it is that John knows it's all for his sake. That this is Sherlock-speak for _I am okay with this and I'm trying to reassure you but I don't know how to say it._ And John loves that, loves him for it. And all it does is make him regret everything even more.

He stops abruptly, earning a mild glare from the woman behind him. There's a bench on the pavement and he goes to it, sitting down and pulling the DNA test out of his pocket.

He stares at it, the world chipping away around him, every letter, every number, another piece coming loose to shatter on the ground. He's a doctor, he's knows what all this is. And it is far more difficult to deny it, to pretend otherwise, when the proof is staring him in the face. And the reality of it, of Mary's betrayal, of his own stupidity, his own failure, is suddenly that much more stark, that much more unavoidable. He can't even pretend now. He will see a chin and a nose and eyes that aren't his and he'll  _know,_ without a doubt, that they're not.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. It's Sherlock. He knows it is. He wants to ignore it but knows that he can't. So he reaches for it, glances at the screen, frowns.

_Unknown Number._

He accepts the call with a cautious finger.

_“Hello, John.”_

“Mary?”

_“How reassuring. You still remember who I am. I was sure you'd forgotten.”_ She is breathing a little too hard and years of medical training are instantly on alert.

“Mary, why are you calling? What's wrong?”

_“This is the British prison system, John, not the depths of Russia.”_ She tries to laugh and the sound is so obviously forced, bitter and filled with anger.

“Mary, Jesus. Is it the baby? Why are you calling me?”

_“All this concern. The baby. Of course. You care so much, don't you?”_

“Just tell me what you want.”

_“I want to see you, John,”_ and her voice is abruptly soft, pleading.  _“I want to see the man I love one last time.”_

“One last—”

_“Just come and see me, John. But quickly now.”_ And with that the click of the receiver and in his hand his mobile goes dead.

He stares at it, replaying the conversation, trying to find the loophole in her words, but all he can think of is that smile, that demure glance from under her lashes, the hand laid on a distended belly. Dread is beginning to rise up in him, horror building slowly at the back of his mind.

He is up and running before he's even thought about it, six blocks back to Baker Street. He is on the phone as he goes, the number he never thinks he'll need until he's dialling it, and that voice hateful, unavoidable, beautiful in this moment.

_“John?”_

He sighs in unutterable relief. “Mycroft. I need help.”

 


	9. Bronzefield

When he steps out of the front door to see the black government car pull up, Sherlock can feel the panic in him rising. He is terrified, terrified of what's happened that has Mycroft hanging up and then sending a car to him. He can feel himself begin to shut down, one door at a time slamming closed until there is only fear and John and they are side by side and Sherlock's can't untangle them no matter how hard he tries.

So when he hears the sound of someone running, those achingly familiar footsteps on the pavement before John appears like a ghost from the early morning darkness, Sherlock's first reaction is anger, anger at Mycroft for letting him think what he had, anger at John for leaving, for making him worry, for doing this to them. And relief, overlaying it all, an intense, crippling gratitude, that he almost can't contain.

And then John is before him, his eyes wide and manic, his mouth tight, his face yellow in the street light.

“Sherlock,” he pants. “Get in the car.”

“John—”

“Mary. The baby. I don't know.”

Sherlock doesn't question it. John is ahead of him, opening the door and sliding in and Sherlock wordlessly follows, his own mind replaying the look Mary had given John right before he had dropped the phone and stormed out of Bronzefield without a word. He is picturing that hand, laid so meaningfully on her own stomach and something in his own starts to flutter.

On a London evening, the drive to Bronzefield Prison takes approximately forty-five minutes to complete. At not quite five in the morning, breaking several laws along the way, with John tapping his leg the whole way, his hand clenching on the seat until Sherlock takes it, pries those fingers apart to clutch at his, it takes less than twenty.

They are expected, gates opening at their behest. John doesn't let go of Sherlock's hand as they're left at a door, striding through the hall, the same guard leading them as before.

They're led through a series of doors, a labyrinth of connecting hallways, all key swipes and thumb prints. Sherlock can't stand this silence. John is tense and dangerous at this side, but this isn't the kind of danger they like. This isn't the sort of thing that leaves them panting and grinning at the end, hands and mouths all over each other, erections and confessions straining to come loose. This is the kind that has Sherlock in his Mind Palace for days afterwards, John silent and uncommunicative, his routine devolving into a series of long walks and brooding silences.

“What's happening with her?” Sherlock finally asks, because he needs to know something. John had relayed to him the short phone call, his voice steady while his hands shook, something that terrified Sherlock in and of itself.

The guard glances backwards, gaze steady, more than a little calculating.

“I know you work for my brother,” Sherlock snaps.

The side of her mouth turns down and she gives a short nod. “We've been instructed not to let her know that we're aware of anything out of the ordinary, Mr Holmes.”

“And five-thirty visit times is incredibly normal,” John snaps.

The guard looks at him. “We're under orders to be more lenient with her. Mr Holmes—” she pauses. “The elder Mr Holmes, that is, is observing her and she is aware of it.”

“Jesus Christ,” John snarls and Sherlock gives his hand a squeeze, a silent warning to tread lightly.

“So she hasn't even been looked at by any doctors?”

“No, Doctor Watson.”

“Is she in labour?”

“It doesn't seem like it.”

“Do you know _anything?”_

“As much as you do, sir.”

Sherlock can feel John, silently seething beside him and he holds onto that hand, that tenuous link between them, the only thing that's keeping him connected to this seething, churning thing of terrified rage that John has become.

When they stop at the last door, as the guard swipes her card and presses her thumb to the pad, Sherlock turns swiftly to John.

“I'll stay back,” he says.

He sees the guilt, the relief flicker across John's face. “No. Sherlock, no—”

“It's better,” Sherlock interrupts flatly. “She won't talk in front of me.”

John swallows, something complicated and frightened passing across his face. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. But.”

He doesn't finish. The door opens and the long empty hall of the visiting room is revealed before them. Without another word, John releases Sherlock's hand and goes through, Sherlock behind him. The guard follows them in and the door slams with metallic finality at their backs.

 


	10. Failures

She is in the same chair as last time, the same terrible boiler suit, but even from across the room John can see the difference. Her skin is waxy and he doesn't know if it's the lighting, withn o daylight being thrown from the high windows to alleviate their effect, but she looks sallow, jaundiced.

He leaves Sherlock behind, his shoes landing with solid finality on the concrete floor, and he doesn't even notice the cold this time. He is focused on the woman on the other side of the glass, cold eyes watching his approach, her face completely blank.

He doesn't show it, years of training coming into play, but he takes in the details, the slight hunch to her back, the way she seems to be curving inwards, the body's unconscious attempt to protect its vulnerable places. It is also a response to pain.

He sees the track of sweat on the side of her face, the moisture on her upper lip. He sees the way her eyes are wide and light, the pupil shrunk to nothing, her shoulders rising and falling just a little too fast.

John reaches the chair, the receiver, and sits down across from her and picks it up. A moment later, her arm unwrapping from the space below her belly, pressed tightly against her lower abdomen, she does the same.

_“You came.”_

Her voice, tight and tense, trying not the shake.

“Are you in labour?” John asks right away.

A sneer passes her face. _“Always the baby. That's all you care about.”_

“Just answer the bloody question.”

_“Don't be more of a fool than you already are, John Watson. No. I'm not in labour. You know why I called you here.”_

“I only know you're insane.”

_“Is that any way to talk to your wife?”_

He is silent, his jaw clenched tightly, his left hand in a fist at his side. She watches him, and he sees the satisfaction in her face.

_“I'm glad you came. They've been very good to me. No doubt due to Sherlock's rather shady governmental connections. Was it you who told them to keep an eye on me? Just let her have her head so long as she doesn't hurt the baby? They're been careless, though, John. It's so easy to find ways in a place like this.”_

His hands are cold as he replies, and he feels the blood leaving his face. “What have you done?” His voice cracks, no more than a whisper, and she smirks from the other side of the glass. She is definitely jaundiced. He can see it in the whites of her eyes now as she leans close, in the skin between her fingers where she clutches at the phone in her hand.

_“It's too late,”_ she says, her voice almost casual. _“But I wanted you to watch.”_ And as if some flood inside her is released, she gives a sudden cry, her face collapsing in on itself as she slides from the chair. The receiver falls from her hand, cracking as it hits the ground. He still hears her screaming though, her breaths coming out in strangled gasps as she fights for oxygen against the cold concrete floor. She is writhing, trying to curl inwards around the bulge of her stomach and he isn't even aware that he is on his feet, pounding at the glass, that Sherlock is beside him, his hands pressed against the divider, his eyes wide and his lips pursed tight.

The guards that are stationed by the door are running towards her and the door behind them flies open. A team of medics with a stretcher burst in and John can only shout through the glass as Mary fights them for every inch, biting them and kicking at them until three of them hold her down while another one thrusts a needle deep into her neck.

It is almost instantaneous, the stillness. Too sudden. She blinks, once, twice, and through the partition her eyes find his and she smiles, utterly serene, and John watches as every muscle goes slack. There is a stethoscope on her stomach, fingers at the pulse point at her wrist. Her breath is coming fast and shallow but he knows what death looks like. He knows what this is.

He watches as they hoist her onto the stretcher, as they hurry her out of the room. The receiver is still hanging off the hook and he hears them talking, the rapid number of her heartbeat hanging in the air, the urgency in their tone. He sees the glances they exchange over her silent body and he knows.

He hears the door slam shut behind them through the receiver. He feels the hand on his back and he looks up to find Sherlock watching him, eyes wide and almost silver. There is a question in them that he can't answer.

“Acute liver failure, I think,” he says, and he's aware of how flat his own voice sounds.

“They'll let us in,” Sherlock says with certainty. “You're a doctor.” And he's already looking back to find the guard, to snap an order at her, but John stops him, a hand on his arm.

“No. I don't want—” he shakes his head. Doesn't know what he wants. Doesn't even know how he feels. He is numb. He's having trouble with his limbs, concentrating hard on trying to control them. “Let's just sit. Somewhere. Please.”

Sherlock is watching him, his own expression careful, far too careful. “The baby—?”

John shakes his head. “I don't know. I think—I don't know.”

There is a silence as Sherlock absorbs this, watching John, and John can't meet his eyes. But the effort it takes to stay standing is tremendous right now, so when he feels that familiar arm slide around him, pulling him close, more than half-supporting him, he doesn't even argue. He let's Sherlock guide him, walking him to the door to where the guard waits to lead them out.

 

 


	11. Imprisoned

They wait in the guard's breakroom, a cheerless place with no windows located in the centre of the building. There are lockers, two small washrooms and a separate shower, a utilitarian kitchen with basic seating in which resides an espresso machine, shiny and new and almost surrealistically out of place. Tucked in a corner is a small lounge space, with three worn but comfortable sofas creating a closed off area with a table in the middle with several stacks of books and magazines teetering around its edges.

The guard—her name is Amira—doesn't linger. She makes them coffee on the gleaming chrome machine, then leaves them alone in an otherwise empty room.

For the next forty-six minutes, neither of them speak. The hum of the refrigerator is overly loud in the windowless room, and the occasional clank of a pipe makes John jump. He's sitting on a wooden chair in the kitchen with the coffee cup clutched in his hands. He doesn't drink it, and Sherlock, pacing the room, inspecting the walls, every corner and crevice, watches him out of the corner of his eye as the steam slowly dissipates, the coffee growing cold.

He drinks his own within minutes, makes two more cups and drinks those too before regretting it and fleeing to the loo. When he emerges again, John still hasn't moved.

It is nerve-wracking. Almost unbearable. Shut away in this silent place. It feels like a coffin, as if they've been buried and forgotten and Sherlock isn't used to this feeling, of being left on the outside, kept in the dark. He doesn't know what's happening and no one is coming to tell him. He wants to escape, to go out into the corridors and find out how far he can get, but John doesn't even blink when Sherlock goes to the door, opens it a crack, peers out into the empty hallway outside, and Sherlock doesn't want to leave him alone so he lets it shut again, going back to investigating the scuffs on the wall and figuring out the locker combinations.

He counts the minutes, every second ticking away in his head. It feels like it's been hours but he knows it's been barely minutes.

He gets no messages, no calls. Not even Mycroft. _Especially_ not Mycroft, which is faintly worrying and incredibly infuriating. Sherlock refuses to let himself be the one to call first. It's obvious that Mycroft is fully aware of the situation and his silence is all the more maddening because Sherlock knows it's intentional.

After forty-five minutes he is ready to scream. He wants to grab John and escape, run out into the corridors and see how far they get. He feels as though he's the one being imprisoned, and he goes to the door again, just to see if there's someone out there, if they're being guarded and watched.

“Sherlock.”

He halts. John, for the first time, is looking up at him. He looks exhausted and pale, his eye lids red and swollen though he hasn't been crying.

“John?”

“You don't have to stay.”

Sherlock stares at him, not sure what that means.

But he doesn't have a chance to ask, not even to react, because at that moment the door opens behind him and Amira walks in. Her lips are pursed and she looks pale, and though there isn't anything like weakness on her face, Sherlock sees the lines tightening around her eyes, the careful control in her expression.

“What's happening?” he demands, even before John.

She looks at him, almost as if surprised to still see him there, then her gaze transfers over to John who has risen from his seat but hasn't yet moved from the spot.

“She's dead. Acetaminophen overdose. Deliberate.”

Sherlock isn't even surprised. His eyes narrow. “Paracetamol,” he says. “From the hospital ward? Left alone for a minute during an ultrasound, no doubt. Careless.”

Amira's jaw tightens. “All medications are locked up, their dosages strictly regulated. Inmates are never left unsupervised in the hospital ward.”

“Then how—” he cuts himself off. Of course. “Another inmate. Not so strictly regulated as you thought.”

“There will be an investigation.”

“How helpful,” he sneers.

_“What about the baby?”_

John's voice bursts in between them, rapid and scattered. Sherlock looks at him and sees the way he holds himself up, the stiffened spine looking ready to snap, his face tight and tense and ready to shatter.

A flash of guilt passes over Amira's face. “Yes,” she says. “Of course. I apologise, Doctor Watson. We were able to remove the baby successfully. It is alive and seems to be doing well. They are doing tests now, but because it was so far along they think it's escaped any permanent damage.”

For several seconds John doesn't move, doesn't react at all. He is staring at Amira but it's obvious he's not seeing anything, his eyes straight ahead and focused inwards. Just as Sherlock is going to approach him, go to him and lay a hand on his arm, nudge him out of whatever dark place it is that he's found, John blinks and for a brief moment his eyes focus on Sherlock before they skitter uncertainly away. He nods, his shoulders thrown back. “Let me see it,” he says.

Amira nods. “Of course, Doctor Watson. Follow me.”

She turns to lead the way from the room when abruptly she pauses, looks back at Sherlock, her face carefully blank.

“I meant to say, your brother requests that you call him. From the warden's office, if you will.”

Sherlock frowns, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Mycroft can wait.”

“He says it's urgent.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes, pulls his mobile out. She puts a hand out to stop him and he looks up, faintly surprised and more than a little outraged at this unsolicited touch.

“From the warden's office,” she repeats, and her eyes glance around at the empty room around them. “The line is secure there.”

He is about to refuse. The whole thing is ridiculous, Mycroft playing games again. He needs to be with John. He needs to do this with him, refuses to let him do this alone.

But then a firm hand finds his, wraps briefly around his fingers and squeezes. “Sherlock. Go talk to Mycroft.”

Sherlock freezes, feeling something very like physical pain bloom in the cavity of his chest. There is something lodged at the bottom of his throat, making it hard to swallow, to talk, so he nods instead. Clamps his lips firmly shut and nods.

There is a moment in which he think John is going to say something else, in which some words will come to fix whatever is suddenly wrong with him, but those fingers only squeeze once more around his before pulling away.

“Alright,” John says, to Amira, not to Sherlock. “I'm ready.”

 

 


	12. Daughter

For several corridors they walk together, Sherlock slightly behind John who follows Amira. When they reach a branching there is another guard waiting, and without a word she nods to Sherlock, indicating with a silent gesture that he's to follow.

Without a glance at John, Sherlock goes with her, up a narrow staircase and out of sight, and the moment he is gone John can feel something like relief overtake him. The guilt that accompanies it is almost overwhelming and for a moment he wants to call him back, or stand there and refuse to go anywhere without him. But the thought of looking at that creature, the changeling he needs to accept with Sherlock looking on, deducing every panicked and horrified thought from the set of his face, terrifies him too much. In the end he says nothing, follows Amira through the corridors, past the two dozen beds neatly lined up in the main ward and out again on the other side where he is suddenly standing in another hallway where a large pane of glass looks out into another room.

There are three of them. Three babies, all lined up in a row.

“Which one?” he asks, and his voice sounds strange in his own ears.

“The one in the middle,” Amira says. “It's a girl.”

He nods. He knew that.

“Can I—do you mind? I won't leave here. Just—a few minutes. On my own. Please.”

She nods, a look of understanding on her face, and something else. Guilt? He's not sure but he doesn't care enough to want to ask. With a brief nod, she turns around and leaves him, quietly shutting the door behind her, and then, for the first time since hearing Mary's voice on the line—hours ago? Minutes? Days?—he is alone, and the relief of it is almost staggering.

He lets his face fall, his expression settle into whatever lines they want. His shoulders slump, utterly defeated, as he looks at the child through the window.

Normal. It looks normal, except a bit quieter perhaps, than the two other infants swathed in their blankets on either side. He stares at this thing, this sliver of life, stolen from another, and he wishes he could feel some affection for it. But it's just a baby, just another fraction of humanity that has no connection to him whatsoever.

He wonders how he's going to do this. How he's going to pretend. How long he's going to have to pretend for. Will it grow on him? Will he eventually be able to see it for itself, its own separate soul rather than two broken chips off of someone else's?

There is the sound of the door latch then, too soon and not soon enough, and just like that he can feel all his defences snapping up again, his shoulders pulling back, his spine stiffening. He can feel the expression slip off his face as if it's never been and he keeps his eyes focused on the child in the middle, eyes boring into it, wondering if he concentrates hard enough he'll be able to see something else.

He hears the footsteps, cautiously approaching, stopping at his side. He wonders if Amira is going to tell him he has to go now and he almost hopes that she will.

“Which one is it?”

John's head snaps up. This is not Amira. It's not even Sherlock. He looks sideways at this sudden companion and his entire body freezes and he stares, wondering how this is even possible.

“David.”

David—thin blonde hair, round guilty face—nods, not quite daring to meet John's eye. His expression is half sheepish, half defiant as he plants himself in front of the glass window and stares at the three infants lined up in a row.

“Doctor Watson,” he says in greeting, trying to sound casual and failing.

“What are you doing here?”

John's trying to be angry but he can't find it in himself to be able to. Something very close to the surface is screaming in relief and he tries to silence it, but the guilt is too heavy to lift very far and in the end he just lets it, listening to this internal din while David grimaces and shuffles his feet.

“I'm not supposed to tell you.”

“Mycroft Holmes.”

A tightening of his lips and David nods. “I've never met anyone quite like the Holmeses.”

“You probably never will again.”

“Thank God.”

John snorts and feels guilty. David glances sideways at him, the suggestion of a smile on his face. It fades, even as he fixes his eyes in front again, staring through the glass.

John can see his reflection, the working of his jaw, and he sees when his lips part, the inhalation of his breath.

“I'm sorry,” David says. “What we did.” A flicker of a glance sideways to where John is watching him through the glass. “To you,” he clarifies. “What we did to you. It was wrong. Very wrong. But we had been happy. You know? I thought—she had loved me. Then she left me one day. Didn't say why. Not a word. She went from laughing in my arms to telling me goodbye and she never told me why. And then I found out she was dating you. She told me herself. Messaged me whenever she needed to talk. It was...nice. Nice knowing that she still needed me. And when she wanted to meet, of course I said yes. I missed her. My beautiful Mary. It was incredible to hold her again. I begged her not to marry you, you know.” He laughs, a sound without mirth. “She didn't say a word, just smiled and kissed me and left me like she always did. I wondered, of course. When she told me about the baby. I thought perhaps—”

“It's yours,” John blurts, because he doesn't want to hear this anymore. Doesn't want to hear about all the things he failed at. He already knows them. He already has the list compiled in his head and he doesn't think he can stand to have them expounded on in quite this manner, red-inked footnotes at the bottom of a sheet.

There is a silence from David. He stares at the the infants through the glass and clears his throat.

“Which one is she?” he asks again.

“The one in the middle.”

“She's beautiful.”

John says nothing. Doesn't know what to say.

“I loved her, you know. Still do.”

John turns his head, stares at the man, not quite sure what to say. “Do you—do you know why she was in here?”

David shrugs, his mouth twisting oddly. “Not really. Mycroft told me she killed someone. Or tried to. He didn't give me many details. It doesn't matter, though. Whatever she did I'm sure there was a good reason.” He turns his head, meets John's gaze full on and his face is luminous, his eyes wet. “I knew her, Doctor Watson. I knew Mary so well, so I don't need to know what she did in order to know that whatever it was, she did it because she felt she had to. She was amazing, my Mary. She was so brilliant, and I loved her so much. And I know she was your wife. I haven't forgotten. But I also knows things weren't always happy between you, and this baby—she's mine. And she's all I'll ever have of Mary. And I would take such good care of her. I know you don't know me, you don't know the first thing about me. But your friend, Sherlock Holmes, he's a detective. And Mycroft Holmes, his brother, the one in the government. Have them investigate me. Background checks, criminal checks, income, partners—anything. Everything. You can know whatever you want. I can give her a good home. I'll do anything you need me to do to make you trust me.”

John stares at him. David is almost glowing, his face lit up from some internal hope, some devoted certainty, and he wonders if he ever looks that way when talking about Sherlock, if this is how Lestrade and Mycroft and Sally Donovan feel when he professes his love for Sherlock Holmes. But he doesn't think so. Because he knows Sherlock isn't perfect. He knows neither of them are. But he knows about Sherlock's dark side, his worst habits, and he loves him still. In spite of them, _because_ of them. But he doesn't ignore them. He could never ignore them. He sees them every day, left rotting on the counter or backing up the toilet or hogging the blankets. And if Sherlock ever ended up in prison, John knows he would be the first one in line demanding to know what the hell he had done to get there, and the first one in line trying to get him out again.

But Mary's gone now and David, though perhaps naive, is hardly a terrible person. John knows that he and Mycroft will never see eye to eye, but he knows enough about Sherlock's brother to know that he would never have pushed this into happening if he hadn't already done a thorough check on David Cardigan's past, present, and possibly even future. Mycroft is...Machiavellian, but not evil.

Well. Mostly not evil.

He looks at the child again, twitching now in sleep. He doesn't see the beauty that David sees. All he sees is Mary's eyes and David's chin and everything that he wants to forget. He still feels the guilt, but the relief is starting to overtake it, and so he lets it. Turns to David and nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Just—please. Don't name her Mary.”

 


	13. Guilt

The moment Mycroft picks up the phone, Sherlock knows that this is a conversation he doesn't want to have. Mycroft's voice is light, unconcerned, and Sherlock hears the warning go off in his own mind even as he wants to shout at the distant civility in his brother's tone.

_“Ah, Sherlock. How are you?”_

Sherlock needs to breathe deeply to keep from throwing the phone against the nearest wall.

“What do you want, Mycroft?”

_“Really, Sherlock. Mummy taught you_ some _manners.”_

He doesn't have time for this. He is going to hang up. He is going to replace the receiver on its cradle, let the dialtone do the talking for him. He's going to end this conversation and go find John, who needs him, who he needs. But Mycroft knows Sherlock. Knows the ends to which he can be pushed before enough is enough, and through the line, several inches now away from Sherlock's ear, he hears his brother's voice,  _“And how's John, then?”_

He pauses, inhales steadily as he presses the phone back to his ear. He is wondering what he's missing in those words, laden with a meaning that Sherlock just can't parse because he's too impatient, too tired, too angry.

“He's fine. We're both fine. I need to go to him now.”

_“I really wouldn't advise it.”_

He feels his temper flare again. “I'll be sure to remember that should I ever start to care what you think.”

_“Don't be such a child, Sherlock. I'm doing this for you.”_

“What? Boring me? Another one of your lessons in patience?”

_“I'm trying to save you from doing what will make neither of you happy.”_

“For God's sake! Is this about the child again?”

_“Of course it's about the child. John needs to make a decision and he won't be able to do it with you around.”_

“There's no decision to be made. It's  _been_ decided.”

Mycroft sighs, a long-suffering sound that makes Sherlock grit his teeth and clench his left hand, loose inside the pocket of his coat. 

_“You really are the stupid one,”_ he says.

“Piss off, Mycroft,” Sherlock snaps back. “At least I know to hire people who actually do their job. Illicitly obtained paracetamol overdose? What a very competent staff you have.”

_“Honestly, Sherlock. Where do you come up with these ideas? My staff is very well aware of what awaits any failures on their part.”_

The silence that falls is complete and Sherlock is suddenly aware of the rush of his own heart and the way it suddenly seems to stop. He can feel his lips curl upwards into a sneer, his nails digging into the palm of his hand.

“You let this happen,” he says finally, not even a question.

There's an exasperated sigh. _“She was so willing. Besides, just think of all the complications of having her accidentally killed. All the questions! No, this was much easier.”_

“You could have let it lie.”

_“The person who tried to kill you? Twice?”_ and suddenly his voice is cold, hard.  _“Honestly, Sherlock. It's like you don't know me at all.”_

“What am I supposed to tell John.”

_“Nothing. Nothing's changed. She did this on her own and you were both too late to stop her. Now if you'll excuse me, Sherlock. I really am extraordinarily busy and you and your doctor have taken up rather enough of my time this morning.”_

The line goes dead on the words and for ten seconds afterwards Sherlock stands there with the hand piece still pressed to his ear. He counts them, as if ten seconds could make some change in the way the world is suddenly spinning away.

 


	14. Deductions

John doesn't stay in the hospital ward. He leaves David, pressed against the glass and staring at his daughter, a look of rapt adoration on his round face. He doesn't ask what he's going to name her. Doesn't ask anything. He'll have Sherlock look into David a little more closely, though it's doubtful if Mycroft hasn't already turned the man's life upside down. It'll make him feel better, however. Seeing it for himself.

He follows Amira through the corridors, one after another, all an identical off-white with no markings. His entire body is clamouring for Sherlock now, his mind slowly starting to unwind, a burden of guilt that he hasn't been without for months slowly slipping piece by piece from his shoulders to lie useless and unheeded in his wake.

He feels light, strangely so. A feeling that reminds him of—he can't remember. A long time ago. Before Mary. Before the warehouse. Before the plunge from the roof of St Bart's. It is a feeling that brings with it the open smell of moorland, of wind travelling for a long time, of dank forest and log fires. It is Dartmoor, before everything broke. When he had been certain for such a short time.

This is different, though. Because there's nothing left in the way.

He knows where they are now. The entrance corridor of the prison and John lets himself be led out into daylight, dawn a breaking strain in the eastern sky. He emerges into open air and breathes deeply, wondering at how different the air suddenly tastes.

“Sherlock meeting us out here?” he asks.

Amira nods. “Yes, Doctor Watson.”

He almost smiles, at this relative stranger, at this person who means nothing to him, but for whom he suddenly feels a vast affection. “Call me John.”

The look she gives him is startled, almost guilty, her eyes sliding quickly away. “Okay,” she says, and the word breaks in the middle.

He frowns. Wonders if he's upset her. This isn't just a prison guard, he remembers. This is one of Mycroft's minions and he wonders what orders she's under, how many cases she's sent to observe in this place.

“You seem to know your way around here well. I'd get completely turned around in those corridors. They all look the same.”

She looks relieved at the line of questioning, directing half a smile at him. “Three months and I still get lost sometimes.” She seems to realise that she's said something wrong because the smile is gone the next instant and she shrugs, a gesture somewhat exaggerated. “We all do, of course.”

“Yeah, course,” he agrees, and realises that he will never be Sherlock Holmes because he doesn't have the finesse for this, nor the patience. His next words he gives up even trying to be subtle. “Were you sent here only to watch Mary?”

He sees the surprise on her face before it shuts down entirely, the slightest hint of guilt before her entire posture stiffens. “I'm not permitted to discuss my employment, Doctor Watson. I'm sure you understand.”

He nods, nothing affable left. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I understand.”

And he does. He only wonders how it's taken him so long to figure it out. He should have realised it when he had first called Mycroft at three-thirty in the morning only to have him pick up on the first ring. He thinks of the absurdity of something like a paracetamol overdose in a prison like this. Drugs, cigarettes as currency, he imagines there's little that the guards don't actually know about, especially when one of those guards belongs to Mycroft Holmes. He wonders how long he had known about it, how long he had waited, if the timing had been intentional, if the slow feeding of a high enough dose had been carefully calculated and doled out.

Was this part of the plan? What if she hadn't taken them? What if she hadn't died? John wonders how long Mary would have survived after she had given birth. A day? A week? Would Mycroft have waited for her to stop breast-feeding? How would he have done it? A shiv in the back? Something slipped into her food? A prison riot gone wrong? A quiet disappearance in the middle of the night?

John wants to be angry about this, he wants to be enraged. But at the same time...he understands. He understands this about Mycroft. He understands it about himself, too. He thinks of her willingness to destroy herself simply to ensure that John would never get the baby, the pain she had endured in silence just so she could make sure he would be there to watch.

He thinks of her, standing over Sherlock with a gun one more time and everything in him freezes. She wouldn't have given up. She would never have given up and he knows it. He himself had been willing to take the risk of killing her, child and all, if it had meant saving Sherlock. He can't possibly blame Mycroft for feeling the same way.

And _Sherlock._ Jesus. Sherlock. _Does he know?_ He must. Sherlock has to know. There isn't a reason in the world why Mycroft wouldn't tell him about it, why he wouldn't be aware of it. And if Mycroft hadn't mentioned it, well, if John was managing to muddle his way through to a conclusion, he'd safely bet everything he owns that Sherlock managed it long before. 

John feels the beginnings of indignation rise up at the thought, that again,  _again,_ these fucking Holmes brothers and their bloody secrets. He clenches his fists because how do they keep coming back to this? How does John keep letting this happen? These fucking secrets, always these fucking secrets because no one thinks he's bloody smart enough to be capable of thinking on his own. No one thinks he's capable of making a decision for himself. He wishes Sherlock were there so he can hit him again, and as if summoned by that desire, the entrance to the prison opens and Sherlock steps out, blinking into the rising sun.

He is pale, too pale, and John knows that look on his face, of something carefully shuttered, and knowing exactly what it is that Sherlock's hiding doesn't make John like it any better.

“Car's here,” Amira says quickly, and he looks over. The car is here, two hundred yards away still, coming up the long road, but John recognises the announcement as a hopeful deflection and he bows to it. Clenches his jaw and says nothing. Still several feet away, Sherlock doesn't step forward to take his hand. Further confirmation of guilt, as if John needed it.

The silence as the three of them watch the car drive up is tense and laden with purpose. When the familiar black vehicle pulls to a stop beside them, John goes first, opening the door and sliding into the back seat without a word.

He's aware of the slight pause from the man behind him and he feels a glow of angry triumph. He wants Sherlock to feel uncomfortable. He wants him to feel as guilty as possible.

When Sherlock finally does get in the car, he stays on the far end of the bench, tucked against the door. John, staring out his own window, doesn't even try to slide closer.

The twenty minute ride from earlier is a distant dream. The drive to Baker Street feels interminable. Morning rush hour has officially begun, though not quite in earnest, but the forty-two minutes spent in the backseat of the car—both he and Sherlock studiously attempting to ignore each other while being hyper aware of the driver only a few feet away—seems endless. At two minutes past eight, when the car finally stops in front of 221B, they both erupt from their own doors as if their restraints have suddenly come loose.

Sherlock is ahead and he unlocks the door. They are silent as they climb the steps, Sherlock skipping every second one as usual, his coat swinging behind him, John following at a slightly slower pace, each foot planted deliberately on each tread.

When they get to the landing, Sherlock goes in through the kitchen, John goes straight through to the sitting room. There is the twin slam as both doors are shut firmly behind them and John turns immediately left, fully intending to confront Sherlock, refusing to let him slink off, when Sherlock himself swings around the corner from the kitchen.

“How bloody dare you—”

“John, I need to tell you—”

They both freeze, falling silent as they stare at each other. John narrows his eyes. Sherlock slowly cocks his head to the side.

“Go ahead,” John says dangerously.

Sherlock takes a small step back. “Fine,” he says, and he is defensive, his chin settling into a pout. “You're not going to like it. And I don't know if I should tell you. But you said no secrets, that I'm not allowed to keep things from you so remember that this is your own fault.”

“Cut line, Sherlock,” John snaps.

Sherlock scowls at him. “This was Mycroft. I swear to you, I had nothing to do with this. I just found out about it now. Well. Before we left. When he made me call him. So not  _now._ But I didn't know before then.”

_“Sherlock.”_

“He knew about Mary, okay! He knew she was trading those bloody tablets and he didn't stop her. He knew exactly what she was planning. He was going to—” he stops, swallows. “I don't think Mary's career as an inmate at Bronzefield Prison would have long outlasted the birth of the child.”

John is staring at him, almost unable to believe that this actually worked, that for the first time Sherlock actually  _listened_ to him. It's almost disappointing when he finds he has to nod, crossing his arms in front of him staring at Sherlock until he finally looks up and meets his eye.

“I know,” John says, and the rush of smugness that overcomes him is too good to try and hide. “Well,” he says with a shrug. “I figured, anyway. It makes sense, after all. Amira was clearly assigned solely to watch Mary. And I doubt Mycroft would have let something like bartering drugs with another prisoner pass.”

Sherlock stares at him. “You  _figured it out.”_

“I'm not bloody stupid, you know,” John snaps, exasperated.

“No. No. Of course. I—” Sherlock stops. Frowns. John watches him look around the sitting room as if he's put something down and he can't remember exactly where. “Wait,” he says. “Where's the baby?”

John almost bursts out laughing.

 


	15. Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oooooooooh my god. so i totally forgot about this. and then i just couldn't remember where i was going with it. and then i was just lazy. but! here is the next chapter! and i intend to finish this, probably within the next few days. there is only another chapter or two (or three?) left. i promise i won't make you wait a million months for the next one again.

John is...good. he's good. Good. Good John.

Good.

Sherlock watches him. There is a line between his eyebrows, deeply carved, familiar. Sherlock's touched it. He's tasted it. He 's run his tongue in the groove and swept the sweat clean with his saliva. There are lines on either side of John's mouth, down-sweeping and harshly carved. They start at the corners and vanish into his chin. 

Sherlock has never managed to understand these lines, to interpret them correctly. They are expressive and can appear at any time. With flared nostrils and thinned lips and brows deeply drawn over flat and fighting eyes. 

They can appear when John is angry, when John is silent, when John is deep in thought, when he is wrestling with some betraying doubt.

John. His John.

He is the weight on the scale of conscience. Something heavy and certain and undoubting. Something good. A magnetic point in a wobbling world.

John. His good John. His happy John. His contented and wonderful and beautiful and silent John.

No. Wait. Not silent. Just. Quiet. Just. Not talking. That doesn't have to mean anything though. That doesn't have to mean _not_ happy. _Not_ contented. Quiet doesn't mean those things. It just means... _not_ talking. N _ot_ laughing. _Not_ murmuring things that make Sherlock grin, smug and impressed by the wonderfulness of this person that is his. Just... _not those things_. That doesn't mean anything, though. That doesn't mean _not happy_.

John.

Silent John.

His John.

_John is not happy._

Sherlock's not sure how this happened. When it happened. They _had_ been happy though, hadn't they? At some point? They must have been. Sherlock thinks of times when John was not quiet. He must have been so at some time for Sherlock to have realised the change. There couldn't be an unhappy John without there having been a happy one at some point before that, a point of comparison for Sherlock to make now, days later, weeks later, months.

Could it have been months? _Oh God._

No. _Hold on._ Think about this logically.

Sherlock watches John, feet away, the distance of two steps, maybe three. Slouched in the faded red chair and reading. _Reading?_ He watches John's eyes move, the concentration on his furled and crinkled brow. _Yes, reading._ He seems content. He _is_ content in that moment. Sherlock is sure of it. But there is a difference. There must be some difference.

Sherlock stares at him harder, trying to parse the silent message in the slope of his shoulders, the morse code in the reflexive tap of his finger against the spine of the book, the hidden meaning in the pattern of his eyes, shifting back and forth over the words in front of him. Sherlock looks at his clothes, the comfortable checked flannel shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck. His corduroy trousers a bit too loose on his frame. _(And when did that happen?)_ His feet, sockless on the floor before him, the toes curled towards each other. He reads the arm crooked up towards the angled head, callused fingers idling in hair grown too long. _(And how did Sherlock miss that before?)_ No, John is John. This is John sitting across from him. And yet...

John is...different.

Since Mary. Since before Mary. Since before Sherlock left. Since before Sherlock died. John with his ever subtle changes, reacting like an echo off the notes that Sherlock throws him. But for once, for the first time, Sherlock realises that the notes that John is echoing didn't come from him. He is echoing himself. Or perhaps _echoing_ is the wrong word. Perhaps, for the first time, John is playing for himself, and so his actions, always slightly bewildering, no longer have a grounding in his own.

What happened at Bronzefield, during that short space of Mycroft's phone call, when John had gone to meet the child that he was determined to own? Sherlock more than suspected Mycroft. He _knew._ But how? What had changed John from utterly certain of his decision to suddenly returning to 221B with only the word “David,” to tell Sherlock what had happened in between?

It's been three weeks, but Sherlock easily recalls the picture of John, heavy and hunched in the guard's breakroom, the coffee cold in his white fingers. He had been still, so still, but not his usual stillness, an animal ready to leap, a quivering tension kept under tight control. It had been the stillness of an inanimate object: a stack of bricks, a stone, a hillside, a mountain. Something heavy and just _there._ Not serving a purpose, simply something that the weather beat down on and slowly wore to nothing.

And coming home that morning, silent and tense during the cab ride home as Sherlock had tried to figure out how to tell John the impossible and John had seethed in silent fury at his side, and finally getting home, finally facing each other, finally telling John....only to find that John already knew. John. _His John._ His clever, wise, ridiculous John. John had laughed after that, an overloud, raucous sound, full-bellied and uncontrolled. He had laughed till his face was wet with his tears and he was on his knees gasping for breath, clutching at his stomach and unable to stop until Sherlock had knelt beside him and held him tightly, just holding him until finally, finally the laughter had subsided to familiar giggles and then to deep controlled breaths even as John had continued to shake, weeks, months, years worth of tension draining slowly from his vibrating frame. They had gone to bed, stripping quickly naked, Sherlock helping John with his buttons when his fingers proved too unsteady. They had laid there for a long time, awake, Sherlock wrapped around John's shivering frame until sleep finally managed to leech the last of it from him and he was still.

That was days ago. Weeks. And though John is no longer shaking, something came loose that day and Sherlock doesn't know how to affix it again, or even if he should.

He stares at John, trying to pick him apart, a problem to be solved, an answer not yet discovered. John is a puzzle. John has always been a puzzle.

And yet...

John is lighter than he's been for months. Years. The palpable edge of contentment marks every motion, every word, every glance. He smiles more, but he talks far less. He no longer slams out of the flat quite so often when they've had an argument, but more and more often he slips off without a word, when Sherlock thinks that nothing could be wrong at all. He is no longer troubled by nightmares, sleeping deeper and stiller than ever before, but also for longer, far longer, and when he wakes up he is still tired.

There is less sex, and Sherlock never would have imagined it was something he would miss as much as he does. The occurrences of casual touching and incidental kisses seem to have risen, however, and Sherlock wonders if it's just the wear of a settled relationship coming to claim them, some inevitable tide slowly creeping inwards. Still beautiful, _just...different,_ the landscape changing into something else, something deeper perhaps and more giving.

But.

_But._

John is different. It's not them. It's _John._ He's sure of it, but he can't pinpoint the reasons why, the logical deductions that lead him to that conclusion and that worries him.

“John.”

“Mm?” John looks up, the lines of concentration softening around his eyes, the suggestion of something glad around his mouth.

“We're...good.” That wasn't what he meant to say at all. It's not even a question and as he watches the smile unfold in the creases of John's eyes he knows he's not getting an answer.

“Hmm,” John hums, an affirmative. Right? That was a _yes,_ right?

Except that John's already going back to his book, the smiling slipping away, eyes already moving on to the next page.


	16. Broken

He dreams of Mary's face.

Yellow-eyed and clammy skinned. She stares at him from a thousand feet away, close enough to touch.

Sometimes she smiles. Sometimes she talks. Mostly she is silent and simply sits there and from the moment that John falls asleep to the moment he wakes up the next morning there is nothing but her implacable eyes, watching him. Waiting.

She is dying. But she's not dead yet.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

It is a rare morning that John wakes up to find Sherlock still in bed. It is rarer now.

The morning after Mary he had slept till five in the evening. Sherlock had been there then, eyes wide and watching as John had blinked slowly towards to surface. They had lain there, unspeaking for half an hour before John had realised that Sherlock wasn't going anywhere unless he moved first, so he had done so, more for Sherlock's sake than his own, gently disengaging himself from the sheets and tottering towards the loo where Sherlock had followed him in minutes later.

They had showered, then eaten. Neither had spoken. By ten o'clock that evening, Sherlock was deep in the throes of an experiment, something involving match sticks. John, his entire body weighted down, had gone back to bed.

That had been the first time he had dreamt of her. She hadn't spoken to him, but she had smiled, a look of expectation on her face. And when he opened his eyes the next morning, the sheets beside him undisturbed, it was twelve hours later and he felt as though he hadn't slept at all.

He didn't tell Sherlock. This wasn't Sherlock's problem. And besides, what would he even say? _Good morning, love. Coffee? Oh and Mary says hello and why did I let her die._

He doesn't stop thinking about it. He hasn't worked at the clinic for months now so he has nothing else to think about. No walls to build between him and the world she now inhabits, of him and Sherlock and the Work. She's part of it now, a case they failed to solve, a life John failed to save. His wife. The mother of what could so easily have been his child. The child he had meant to claim. His penance for his failures, for all the things he'd ever done wrong, all the things he hadn't seen, all the people he'd never saved. His own life, scattered among the rest.

He sometimes wonders how he got to where he is now. He feels Sherlock's eyes on him always, a constant reminder of that pulsing pressure of his regard. It is a physical thing and it weighs on John because he knows he doesn't deserve it. He doesn't.

He feels Sherlock watching him and John keeps reading his book. _I don't deserve this. I don't deserve this._

He knows—is afraid—that when he looks up, Sherlock will realise it too.

“John.”

He looks up. Has never managed to resist his name, that single syllable spoken in that baritone.

And he knows that Sherlock has seen it. Seen something. There is confusion in his face, such a rare thing. It's almost beautiful except that John is too scared to appreciate it.

“We're...good.” says Sherlock, and John hears the determined statement in the words, the underlying need for it to be true.

He doesn't know what he says. He makes a noise. He tries to smile. Then he turns back to the book, making sure his eyes move though there isn't a single word that he recognises on it.

Across from him, Sherlock shifts in his seat.

“I was going to leave you.”

He doesn't even realise he's said the words until Sherlock's utter stillness registers, ten seconds later, and by then John knows it's too late.

So he says it again.

Closes the book. Stares at his fingerprints in the gloss on the cover.

“I was going to leave you.”

Clear. Matter-of-fact. He can't take this back. He doesn't want to. It would have come out. It would have ruined everything eventually, whether he said it or not. Best get it over with. Best cut this as short as possible. It might hurt less. It might prove survivable this time around.

“What.”

Sherlock's voice, the single word cut off from a larger sentence. Not even a question, but John makes himself answer it anyway.

“The baby. I was going to take it. Right up until the last second when David walked into the room.”

“David.”

“Mycroft sent him. Typical.” He snorts. Tries to laugh. Fails. “So typical.”

“John.”

Just his name. John makes another noise. Grimaces at the book in his lap and shakes his head.

“John. Look at me.”

Yes. Yes, that's fair. That's the brave thing to do. That's the right thing to do. John looks up. Sherlock is staring at him. There is nothing on his face and somehow that is worse than anything.

“John. What are.”

Three words this time. Truncated still, but the question in them implied regardless. John nods his answer. Clarifies. “I was going to leave you. I chose the baby.”

 _“We_ chose the baby.”

“No. _I_ chose the baby. You chose me. There's a difference.”

“How.”

“It would have destroyed you.”

“What? _A baby?”_

Something in Sherlock's tone—scorn, disbelief, derision—and John is suddenly angry at him. Good. _Good. Anger makes things easier._

He lets it come. Stands up, starts to pace, his hands stiff at his sides, his head down.

“John, for fuck's sake—”

_“I WAS GOING TO LEAVE YOU, SHERLOCK.”_

And suddenly he is yelling and he doesn't know how that happened. He is stopped in the centre of the room and Sherlock is staring at him, the nothingness momentarily wiped off his face. He is shattered underneath. It is beautiful and obscene and heartbreaking and wrong.

“If you love it, let it go,” John snarls at that heartbreak, flings his arms out, indicating the flat, the world, Sherlock. All the things that had ever let him go. It's his turn, though. His turn to let go.

From his chair, Sherlock stares at him. Slowly the obscenity is cleared away, swept carefully up by his own anger. So familiar on that face. Derisive and scornful and disgusted. His lip curls. “Don't be trite, John,” he snaps back.

“I let you go, Sherlock. Do you understand me? I made a choice. And I chose the—” he stops, swallows. “The baby. I chose the _bloody_ baby.”

Sherlock says nothing, the defensive hauteur battling against confusion as he tries to understand this.

And John knows he can't let this slide. That he needs to finish this or it will hang over them until it ends them. In a week. In a year. In a decade. Eventually. Eventually it would eat away at them and finish them.

“It's not _just_ a baby, Sherlock. There is no such thing as _just_ a baby. It is a life. A child. A human bloody being. It eats, it sleeps, it screams, it...does other stuff. It is a living, breathing _thing_ that wakes up every two hours to be fed. It would mean no more late nights. No more days spent at the lab. No more cases. No more being on call for you, ever. No more risks. _Ever._ Sherlock. Not _ever._ It would have destroyed us. It would have destroyed you. Everything you are. Sherlock bloody Holmes. The only consulting detective in the world. It would have ruined you and it would have been my bloody fault. My bloody child. The child of the woman who tried to murder you. The woman who I—who would never have been able to had I not—”

He stops. He's gone this far but even that proves too much. He is remembering a lifetime ago, a marriage ago. He's remembering the vows he made and then broke. He's remembering Mary's yellow face, wordlessly asking him why he didn't choose to save her and he knows that he can't make that mistake again.

He stares at Sherlock. He's lost his train. He doesn't know what to say anymore. But the nothingness is back on Sherlock's face, familiar, and in this moment the most terrifying thing John could imagine. He's used to that look. Has suffered it for years. But now, irrationally, there is nothing he wants more than to see Sherlock's rage.

He doesn't get it.

Of course now. It's fine. He doesn't deserve it. He knows this.

He knows this even as he watches Sherlock rise deliberately to his feet, and without a glance at him, stride unhesitatingly out the door.

 _You deserve this,_ he thinks, and in his mind Mary's dying face smiles.

 


	17. Conductor

He goes to the lab. Where else? He is aware of cameras, of eyes. They follow him and he lets them. There is something to be said for this method of communication between the brothers. Mycroft will know without a word exchanged what has happened. No awkward questions. No unwilling explanations. Mycroft will know and he will know not to ask. Everything will go back to normal. How it was. Before John. Before Baker Street. _I was going to leave you._ Mycroft won't even be surprised.

He wonders if John will be gone by the time he gets back.

It seems likely. Sherlock can't imagine what else needs to be said. Doesn't see a point in prolonging it. John will know that. He doesn't like these kinds of things either. Sherlock wonders how much it cost John even to speak this morning. How long those words were brewing beneath the surface before slipping out as they did, unchecked, almost unintentional. Sherlock had seen the surprise in John's eyes at his own confession.

_I was going to leave you._

It's better this way. Sherlock only wonders that it took as long as it did.

The lab is empty when he gets there. Good. He tosses his coat on a stool and watches as it misses, landing in a heap on the ground. He stops. Stares at it. It takes him a full minute to realise that he's waiting for John to appear to pick it up for him.

“Sherlock?”

He jumps.

Molly is standing in the door, watching him uncertainly. He feels a stab of anger rushing up to greet her and glares at her. Her eyes widen momentarily but it's the only reaction she gives, stepping into the room and letting the door swing shut behind her.

“Where's John?” she asks, but there's something cautious in her tone and Sherlock understands with having to deduce: _she knows._

And all at once the anger escalates to rage and he finds himself taking a step towards her. He will shake it out of her if he has to, the answer to this. The thought that John might have spoken to her about this. The idea that there was something in this world concerning John that Molly knew that he didn't. He can feel the heat of his fury, colouring his face and sending sweat to prickle along his spine. His eyes are burning and he wonders if Molly can see the fire rising up to consume her.

She must, because she takes a step back, her hands half-raising in instinctive defence. It's this that makes him stop, realise what he's doing, who this is. He stops, but he still glares at her, not trying to see anything. Not wanting to see.

“Tell me,” he snarls, and she purses her lips, her brows coming slightly down over wary eyes.

“I don't understand—”

He gives a shout and a set of beakers goes flying. They shatter into splinters against the wall, their shards crystallising the linoleum floor.

Molly flinches, another step back. He sees when she hits the door, her hand looking for the latch without turning. Her eyes are fixed on him and he can tell she's frightened. He forces himself to calm down but it takes effort, an enormous effort.

He tries again, staying where he is. His hands are at his sides and he forces them to remain there. “Tell me. What did John tell you. What do you know. _Tell me.”_

She is staring at him as if he's gone mad and he's so used to that look being levelled at him that it takes a moment to register, even after she's already started shaking her head, that she has no idea what he's talking about. He wonders, for the first time in his life, if he really is going mad.

“John? John doesn't talk to me. Not like that. He hates me because I knew—” she stops, her lips snapping almost audibly shut and he stares at her, at the fear in her eyes, the wariness in her face. She is ready to flee him, a hand on the latch and he sees that it's already half disengaged.

“Don't be stupid,” he snaps. “John understands. He knows why...” he tapers off because the scepticism in her face is impossible to misunderstand.

They stand like that for a moment, silent. Her eyes are fixed on him and he is staring back but he is thinking too, his mind sliding these pieces into place that he hadn't even realised belonged together until now. It was there. It was all there. _How did he miss it?_

“He wants me to tell him everything,” he says slowly, the words outlining fact, the things he already knew.

Molly says nothing, watching him still. She's no longer afraid, but the uncertainty is still there and she's still prepared to slip away.

“He wants to know because he wants to choose for himself. He wants me to let him decide. Partners. Colleagues.” He frowns at that word from his own mouth. “Friends,” he corrects firmly. “Friends.”

Molly looks uncertain. “I thought—”

He glares at her. “Don't,” he snaps. “You'll only waste my time.”

Everything is moving, shifting. He thinks of his jump, two years ago. He thinks of John's puzzled frustration in the months before. He thinks of how much effort he put into never saying Moriarty's name in front of him. _I was protecting him. I was saving him._

_And now. Now he's doing the same for me._

And suddenly, for the first time, Sherlock thinks of the restaurant, after two years and four months. He thinks of his own ignorance. His own arrogance. And for the first time, Sherlock remembers John's rage and he understands.

 


	18. Deductions

John stares at the closed door of the flat and doesn't move for ten minutes. It is a silent accusation, a challenge. The final unbreachable wall. He doesn't know if he has the energy to batten on it. He doesn't know if he has the right to try.

Nothing makes sense right now. He stands there, searching for the end of some thread to grasp but it's a tangle of skeins that snap at the smallest hint of pressure, leaving him with nothing but ends. He wants to have done the right thing. He wants to know that this was the correct thing. He looks for reassurances inside himself, for a single strand that will take him securely from one end to the other but he's holding onto so many pieces right now, so many broken thoughts and he doesn't know where any of them belong.

 _What happens after this._ He doesn't know what he's meant to do. He doesn't know if he's meant to stay or go. If Sherlock will expect him gone when he gets back. If he's meant to wait. Is there anything else to say? He wracks his brains for something but all he can come up with is _please_ and _sorry_ and _no._

This isn't the way it was supposed to go, but thinking about it, he doesn't know what else he could have expected. _I was going to leave you._ There are only so many ways that can be taken. _I would do it for you. I would have done it because I love you too much. Because I am frightened of a world in which Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist. I could go on, for years, for decades, simply knowing that somewhere you are safe and whole._

He should have said that. He should have said something. Instead, all he had done was swear and tell Sherlock he was leaving. He can't believe what an idiot he is sometimes. He can't believe he's been allowed to go on as far as he's done. He thinks of two years and four months in which he would have sacrificed everything on earth just to get him back. He thinks of a week, not that long ago, when he could so easily have sacrificed himself. But always in the background there was Mary. There was that debt. The _thing_ growing between them that had dictated every move he made from the moment of its inception. That child had become so firmly lodged in his mind as _The Reason_ that even when that reason was removed he had clung to it, too frightened to let it go. It had taken Mycroft's scheming to make him see what he was doing. David's timely arrival that forced him to open his eyes and look at what he had very nearly done. But the fact remained that he had meant to do it. He had meant to, till that last moment, staring at a bundle of DNA that never belonged to him at all, the thing that had ruined everything, that he would allow to keep ruining everything yet, and not until then did he stop and realise what he was destroying in the process. That this was a penance that wasn't his to pay. That his punishment was over and Sherlock was home. And suddenly, suddenly, the world had been empty of purpose once more.

_Why are you doing this? Why are you trying so hard to destroy yourself?_

He has no idea. No idea. But somewhere, someone knows the answer to that. Someone will look at him with withering blue eyes and tell him that his father left him and his mother drank herself to death and that Harry is getting closer to that with every day that passes. Someone will tell him that he has a saviour complex and a crippling need to be useful and that his self-destructive tendencies are a form of self-punishment for every person he's ever failed to save, a hubris so great that it doesn't even merit sympathy and that John just needs to get over it and check the email because they need a case and he's bored.

_Who's bored?_

_Who do you think, John?_

Oh Jesus, he's fucked up.

He is halfway to the door when it suddenly opens. He never even heard anyone come in.

“John. Mate. You look fucking awful.”

Greg. _No. I don't have time. I don't have time._

“Yeah, hey. Sorry, bit of a rush.”

Lestrade is staring at him, wide-eyed and face lined with concern. “John, bloody hell, sure you don't want to sit down?”

“I have to go. Sorry.”

Lestrade moves in front of him, blocking the door, and John debates the merits of going around him through the kitchen or simply hitting him. He weighs them, takes a step towards the kitchen, and watches as Lestrade shifts his stance to intercept him.

“John,” he says in warning.

“Piss off, Greg. I _will_ hit you.”

“Oi! Then I _will_ arrest you. I'm on duty here.”

“Then arrest me or get the hell out of my way.”

Lestrade's eyes narrow and John can see him debating his chances, trying to judge the likelihood of actually having to arrest him in the end.

“Yeah, alright,” he finally says, and John sees the moment he capitulates. “Can I at least take you wherever you're going? Save you the cab fare.”

John nods, recognises the sop and takes it.

“Where we going anyway?”

_Where?_

“I don't know. I need to find Sherlock.”

“Ring him.”

“He left his mobile.”

“That was stupid.”

“Shut up, Greg.”

“Oi! I'm trying to help you here.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just...I need to think.”

“Where does he go?”

“Christ. I don't know! Empty houses in Leinster Gardens? I don't know, _I don't know.”_

This is infuriating, all this _talking._ So _bloody pointless._ He's about to step past him and lead the way out when he finally notices the leather satchel. Worn, scratched, the leather soft and dark with age. Lestrade is holding it by the strap and letting it dangle half way to the floor. He is lowering it, clearly about to put it down, and John remembers packages of breadcrumbs and burnt gingerbread men, cameras and microphones appearing in their flat, men with guns let in past the door.

“What's that?” It comes out sharper than he meant and Lestrade pauses in his motion to look at him.

“Evidence,” Lestrade says. “From the warehouse. Government goons finally finished sweeping the place clean. Sorry it took so long to get back to you boys.”

“That's not ours.”

Lestrade frowns at the intensity of John's denial, settles the bag on the ground. “It's Sherlock's. Had it with him when he arrived that night. He was right stroppy about not getting it back right away. Thought I'd bring it myself, make sure it arrived safely.”

“I don't know it,” says John, and even in his own ears it sounds pathetic, the unreasonable whining of a spoiled child. Another piece of Sherlock he doesn't know. A part of him that he will never have back.

“I imagine he picked it up in Egypt somewhere, or wherever he was.”

John looks at him sharply. “Who told you about Egypt?”

Lestrade looks slightly apologetic but doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. John doesn't even know why he asked. _Mycroft._

And then he realises. _Mycroft. Obviously._

He snatches his mobile from the coffee table and punches in the number without thinking and hates that he knows it at all.

Lestrade is watching him, a question on his brow and John ignores him, turns away to the window and listens as the line rings twice and then that voice, familiar and infuriating.

_“This is becoming tedious, John.”_

“Where is he, Mycroft?”

 _“Incredibly, my job description does not include_ personal tracker _.”_

“Mycroft.”

_“I suppose I should expect a number of these calls in the future.”_

_“Please.”_

Mycroft sighs, a huff of breath expelling into the receiver on the other end, making the line crackle. _“The lab,”_ he says. _“Really, John. A little exercise of logic and—”_

John hangs up, doesn't hear the rest.

 


	19. Release

Lestrade uses the siren. John has never been more grateful in his life.

He is frozen in the passenger seat, his leg twitching, his hand clenching. He is staring straight ahead, barely aware of London passing around him, not even registering the way the traffic opens up before them so that it is barely minutes before they've arrived and the entrance to St Bart's is before him.

He tumbles from the car without a word to Lestrade, without even a glance for the spot on the sidewalk where Sherlock had fallen, years ago, leaving him behind. It is almost fresh, that pain, that horror. This moment when he knows he will walk into that hospital for the first time in years, for the first time since that unthinkable day. He has avoided this for so long. He knows it's past time.

He's aware of people staring, of a man on the bench outside, his leg in a cast and propped before him with the sun on his face. Two nurses on the steps quietly talking on their break. A handful of people waiting at the bus stop. They are all watching him as he runs up the shallow stone steps and pushes through into the building.

And that's as far as he gets, because there is Sherlock, his face dark with anger, teeth clenched and bared as he strides towards the door with his coat flapping behind him like a cape. He looks like the villain out of a film and John's relief at seeing him—at seeing that anger because that anger means a reaction, means Sherlock still cares, that Sherlock is going to fight—is so great that he actually starts to giggle. He stops in the doorway of St Bart's bloody hospital and laughs. And then Sherlock is there, in front of him, his rage making him seem taller and incredibly human.

“Sherlock—”

_“Shut up.”_

“Just bloody listen, I'm—”

“No. You listen. You _bloody_ listen, John _bloody_ Watson. You're wrong. You're wrong. You fucking listen to me, John Hamish Bloody Watson. _You. Are. Wrong.”_

“Sherlock—”

“No. Just shut up. _Shut up!”_ He starts to pace, his long legs eating up the polished stone of the entranceway. They are being stared at, an audience of fifty people, patients and doctors and nurses and cleaning staff stopping in the middle of their day to stare at these two wankers screaming at each other in the hospital lobby.

“Sherlock, please, can we go—”

Sherlock cuts him off with a sudden whirl of his coat, turning on him with eyes gone almost grey. “You said you were going to leave me,” he spits out. “You _loved me_ so you were going to _'let me go'?_ Really, John? _Really?_ Is that the way it worked out in your pathetic little brain? The solution to your—to _our_ problem?” Sherlock gives a shout of laughter, loud and mirthless, filled with bitterness. “You, you demand to know what's going on. You insist I tell you _everything_. You think that your idiotic version of _truth_ and _honour_ and _trust_ will out? You think you can make this decision...for _us?_ ”

And suddenly his pacing stops and he turns to John with an abruptness that makes John take an unconscious step back from the look on his face.

“You, John Hamish Bloody Watson, who doesn't even know yet that no matter where you go in the world _I will find you._ That no matter how sneaky and subtle and _noble_ you're being, there will never be a time that I will cease to look for you. You. _You_ do not get to make this decision for me. You do not get to make this decision for us. Not now, not in our hypothetical future. Never. You do not decide this for me.”

“Sherlock.”

“Shut up, John. Just _shut up._ You've been angry at me for months. For years. You haven't forgiven me. You said you did, but you lied. You never forgave me for jumping off that fucking roof.”

John flinches visibly and he sees the triumph on Sherlock's face.

“This is the first time you've been back here,” Sherlock presses and for a moment John can feel his own anger responding once again, wanting to snap back. “You didn't even look at the sidewalk when you came in, did you. You won't talk to Molly at all. You _have never forgiven me.”_

“Don't—”

“You still blame yourself for it, every day. You still blame me. And you're right. It's my fault. It's _my fucking fault, John._ Is that what you need to hear?”

“Fuck you, Sherlock. Just. Fuck. You. It's not a fucking switch. It's not something that just happens because I want it to. You don't fucking know. After all this time, you still don't fucking understand. You promise you'll tell me everything, that you won't keep secrets anymore, but you don't have the faintest bloody clue why, do you? You don't fucking care because _you know best._ You _always_ know best. Mr Sherlock Bloody Holmes. I have seen every single fucking scar that is on your body. I've seen the ones you don't think I even know about. Every time you lock the hall door now when you're alone. Every single fucking time you can't sleep and you tell me you're in your Mind Palace when I can see you staring at the ceiling because you just can't stand to close your fucking eyes. The way you actually eat now, three meals a day, hoarding food in your pockets sometimes when you think I'm not looking. I _see,_ Sherlock. I'm not a fucking idiot, however much you think I am. I see every single fucking thing about you and every single fucking thing I would have done to save you from just one of those scars. And I would have. I would have saved you or I would have died trying and you just don't. Fucking. Get it.”

“I don't get it? _I don't get it?_ Then tell me, Doctor Watson, what exactly were you trying to accomplish with your noble resolve to spare me the horrors of raising a child. To _save Sherlock Holmes?_ If you love it, let it go. Is that what this is? Some form of punishment? Your sick revenge because I left you?”

“I would have died for you, you fucking wanker.”

“You almost did! Isn't that enough? Or do you need to _actually_ die for it to count. Should I be worried about you jumping from the roof next?”

And that's when John punches him. A single flush hit on the right eye that sends Sherlock reeling back with a cry and both hands on his face.

“You. Fucking—”

“Oh Jesus fucking Christ,” Sherlock snarls, and hits him back.

It is his left eye, and he feels the solid pain of the contact blooming over the ridge of his eye socket. It hurts and it stops him in his tracks. Makes him stop and breathe and he crouches in the entranceway of St Bart's hospital, gasping for air, while across from him Sherlock is bent with his hands on his knees and doing the same.

Around them, fifty people are completely silent.

“Oh my God,” he gasps.

“I had to save you,” Sherlock says.

“I know. And I had to save you,” John says back.

“We're idiots.”

“Yeah.”

There is a silence in which no one moves. Nobody says a word. Then, “Can we go home?” Sherlock asks.

“Yeah,” John says. “Half an hour ago, preferably,” and Sherlock, glancing around at the faces staring at them from all around, gives a snort of laughter.

“We're going to match,” he says with a gesture at his eye.

“No,” John says. “A reflection only.”

“John.”

“Yeah?”

“I think they called Lestrade on us.”

“No, I brought him.”

“A bit extreme.”

“Shut up, Sherlock.”

 


	20. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. This is the last. This universe is officially closed for business. To everyone who read this, thank you for your patience and for your dedication in this slightly uncertain endeavour. Ending this story has never been easy for me. I hope it wasn't too torturous to get through.

They sit in the back. The ride back to Baker Street, with Lestrade driving them, no one speaks. They wend their way through the traffic while Sherlock and John both stare out their respective windows.

On the seat between them, their hands lay untouching. There are inches between them and it is filled with a tension that refuses to dissipate until finally John's hand slides a little further over. As soon as Sherlock feels that pressure, his own hand is moving, his fingers slipping over John's, gathering them up and squeezing them between his own.

When Lestrade drops them at their door fifteen minutes later, they are still holding hands and they don't let go, not even as John fumbles for his key and unlocks the door, not even as Sherlock leads the way upstairs, their arms stretched awkwardly between them.

Only when they close the door of the flat behind them, shutting out the hallway, Mrs Hudson, the world, do they finally let go of each other. John goes straight for the kettle.

They are silent as they wait, the tea making something sacred, a ceremony of sorts that they are both familiar with and need.

An only when the cups are on the counter, the sugar dissolved, the milk poured, does Sherlock step towards John and take his face between his hands, staring at lake blue eyes for several heartbeats before bending his head and kissing him.

It is a long kiss, and slow. Lips soft and wet and hot still from their anger. They kiss for a long time while the tea grows cold on the counter, until they are both slightly breathless and the pressure of their erections are making it difficult to keep going.

When Sherlock pulls back, it is only to lead John to the bedroom where they strip themselves until they are naked and stand in the bedroom and stare at each other across the expanse of the king sized bed, flushed and exposed in the dim light of the day seeping in through the curtains.

“I was going to leave you,” John says, and there is wonder in his voice, as if he can't believe his own words.

“I would never have let you,” Sherlock tells him, and he means it. Entirely. “I'm sorry, John,” he says. “For—” he waves his hand, encompassing everything. The flat. The world. Himself.

“I know,” John says. “Me too.”

When they come together on the bed it is quiet, an almost entirely silent affair that leaves them both breathless by the end, facing each other on their sides and unable to look away.

They fall asleep like that, their hands clutched between them, their legs still twisted in the sheets. John falls asleep first and when he wakes up it is hours later, and for the first time in weeks he feels rested. Beside him, Sherlock is yet unmoving.

It is John's bladder that forces him up eventually. Leaving Sherlock breathing deeply on the bed, John carefully extracts himself and shuffles off to the loo. He considers going back to bed again, but he's thirsty, so he goes to get a glass of water when he catches sight of the brown leather strap, snaked across the floor from around the corner by the sitting room door.

He stares at it for moment, trying to place it, and when he remembers he goes to it, picks up the leather satchel he doesn't recognise and takes it to the kitchen table where he opens it and finds a novel and a shirt.

Or not a shirt. Something wrapped inside a shirt.

He unwraps it with care, till the small blue goddess is sitting in his hands.

“It's Nut.”

He looks up, startled. He didn't hear Sherlock come in. He smiles at the picture he presents, heavy-eyed and naked, his pale lanky frame riddled with scars both white and pink, old and new. John knows them all, has run his tongue and his fingers over each one and catalogued them in his head, indelible parts of his memory now, the constellations of Sherlock Holmes.

“What?” John asks.

“She's a Goddess. Her name is Nut. Goddess of the night sky. She stood between chaos and order and protected the dead. She made me think of you. I got her. For you.” Sherlock blushes, his pale skin flushing easily, and John watches it climb up his chest and creep up his neck. “Also for me,” he says, but quietly, clearly embarrassed.

“She's beautiful,” John says. Then, “Jesus Christ. I can't believe you went souvenir shopping while you were running for your life.” And he starts to chuckle, because he's picturing it, Sherlock standing in line with a bunch of tourists, waiting his turn to pay.

“I got it at the airport,” Sherlock says, and for some reason that's even funnier.

When John finally stops laughing, Sherlock has put the kettle on and the water is roiling noisily while Sherlock measures three spoonfuls of sugar into his cup.

And it's only when the milk is poured and the cups are in front of them steaming that John, taking a sip of precisely prepared tea, nods to Sherlock and says, “Tell me.”

And Sherlock does.

 


End file.
